TRON: Ascension
by ArkhamGirl
Summary: "And then, one day... I got in." 1983. Susan Gifford is an idealistic young woman from LA. Her optimism is just as big as her mouth. However, everything changes by a tragical stroke of fate which leads her to discover her best friend's, Kevin Flynn's secret and to cope with a whole new world... PLEASE REVIEW :D
1. Prologue

/SUSAN/

**G:\|**

**G:\cd_Program_ SusanGifford**

**searching...**

**searching...**

**searching...**

Sighing Flynn took his face in his hands and rubbed his burning eyes. He'd already sat here, in front of the screen, for hours. His back awfully hurt and he felt like going to sleep at once. However, he could not.

Not before he kept his promise.

Not before he saved her.

**G:\ - data_error: {Upload incomlete}\restore_Data res{646289-477dg38-9282828-9383737k-362626c37-47s3738-7461su53u-825091615-74736636-7274...}**

**G:\reload_Program_ok?(Y/N)**

He considered for a moment. It was surprising how complicated this source code was. He certainly knew that it was going to be difficult but he hadn't expected something like that. If he loaded up a program of this size without proper preparation, the system could break down for a moment, causing enormous damage.

But he ran out of time.

"Man, Susan, what did you do to me..."


	2. 1 Life Arcade

**_Author's Note: I'm sorry that it took so long :O This chapter is kind of an introduction to my OC. I hope you'll like her. I have to say that the next chapters will probably be a bit longer cause there the action finally begins ;) Enjoy and please don't forget to review :D _**

**_- End of Line -_**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**/Life Arcade/**

**1983**

"Yes!"

Susan had reached her personal high score.

Flynn's arcade was busy. 'Let's Dance' was blasting out insanely loudly and game sounds coming from the arcade games could be heard everywhere. The atmosphere was incredibly good, but that's what it was always like. Flynn had created this paradise for fun-seekers a few years ago, and Susan visited almost every day. And every day she gamed. Sometimes Space Paranoids, sometimes Pac Man, but her absolute favorite was TRON. She loved the blue and orange lights chasing across the screen. She imagined it wasn't only a game, but that she was riding one of the so-called lightcycles herself.

The love for the game made her invincible... Apart from Kevin Flynn, of course, who was the record holder in almost all the games in the arcade, even though he hadn't found the time to game for a long time.

As always, Susan was now surrounded by a crowd of people cheering for her. Today she could leave work at ENCOM a bit earlier and had decided to try to break Flynn's high score. She was all euphoric now that she'd only reached her own score even though she had been playing for two hours straight. Her eyes were burning and her hands hurt after handling the joysticks for hours, but she couldn't care less.

Concentrated she stared at the screen. A wide smile spread over her face when she heard someone whisper behind her: "Only 40 Points to go!"

Suddenly a familiar voice called: "So there you disappeared!" She turned round quickly and spotted a young man with brown hair and big glasses. He buried his hands in his trouser pockets smiling at her.

"Hey A-"

There she heard a buzzing noise behind her, followed by a loud, disappointed murmered of the crowd.

"No...", Susan gasped.

On the monitor blinked:

!DEREZZED!

GAME OVER

Insert coin

"NONONONONONONOOOOO!"

The people who had only just shared the thrill with her, dispersed disappointed in all directions.

Susan hammered on the arcade cabinet.

"No, you damn thing, it's not over yet! No!" Her angry voice slowly turned into a whiny whimper. She flung her arms around the gaming machine and slid down to the ground with the words "Why are you doing this to meeee?"

The young man laughed and helped to get up. "You tried to break Flynn's highscore again?"

"Yeah and you messed it up! Thanks, Alan!"

He just grinned at her. "I'm actually here to tell you that Flynn wants to see you."

She picked up her coat, which she had thrown to the ground at the beginning of the game, coughed and cleared her throat. "What does he want?"

"I don't know. Maybe he wants you to look after Sam again."

"I hope so. Sam's sooo cute! The last time I came by, he became so excited when he saw me! Squeaked all the time!"

Alan laughed and the two of them went to the exit. When he opened the door, Alan said teasingly: "You could have developed a whole new operating system in the time you spend with your futile trials to break Flynn's highscore..."

She held her hands over her war's and bawled: "Put on your red shoes and dance the bluuuuues!"

Laughing they left the arcade.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX **

"Did you have fun yesterday?" Susan looked at Flynn with a wide grin on her face. "You came home pretty late..."

"Well, we didn't have much time together lately...", Flynn murmered. He was sitting at his computer and wildly typed on the keyboard. "Thanks again for looking after Sam."

"No big deal. He's the only kid i like. Others are... creepy. And annoying. What are you doing there actually?"

"Oh, just a few upgrades for an administrative program."

She squinnied. "What's C.L.U.?"

"That's the program."

"Yeah, but what does it stand for?"

"Um... That's just... randomly mixed..."

Susan continued looking at the screen. Inside her chest ist began to hurt and she turned away coughing.

"Have you been to a doctor cause of that?"

She snorted slightly annoyed. "Nah, but I'm okay. I guess I just need holiday on the countryside. Don't worry about me, dude." Flynn eyed her shortly and attended to the codes he was typing in again. "When will you actually show up at Encom again, Kev?"

"Hmm... I don't know yet. There's plenty to do here. Sam and so on... Alan's doing very well anyway!"

Susan wandered through the room. She took a framed photo of Kevin and his wife Jordan in her hands and smiled. When she put it back, a big sheet of paper struck her eye. "What's The Grid?", she asked casually.

Flynn lifted his head immediately. "Huh?"

She took the paper and held it up.

"Nothing... Put it back again, please."

"Okay...", she said surprised. Normally, Flynn didn't have any secrets from her. Since they have got to know eachother at Caltech they have been the best friends and almost inseperable. It hurt that he didn't trust her enough to let her in his secret now. She suppressed these feelings though. He had more important things to do than to take care of her feelings now and she respected that. However, she couldn't fully suppress her curiosity.

"Well, then...", she sighed. "I gotta go now."

Flynn stood up and hugged her.

"Will you come to the arcade sometime, Kev? I want to play against the champion again! It's so lame without you."

Kevin laughed. "Well, if that is so... How about tomorrow? I think I could come for an hour..."

Susan beamed with joy. "Really? Super! It's gonna be so cool! A crushing defeat for you, but cool though!"

"Dream on, man!"

She gave him a little peck on the cheek.

"See you tomorrow!"

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX **

Susan had asked Alan to examine the source code of the program she just wrote, just to make sure she haven't made any mistakes. She was a good programmer, but ordinary compared to Kevin and Alan.

While he was perusing the numbers and letters on Susan's screen mutely, she looked him over. He was an attractive man. Not only how he looked contributed to his appeal but also his behaviour, his intelligence, his independence. However, Susan would never want anything from him, not least because of his relationship to Lora. The two of them were a great cupple, just like Kevin and Jordan. Even if Alan was single though... something was missing. Something extraordinary. She didn't know what though. Susan never made up her "Mr. Right" and wouldn't begin with that now. There was no rush.

"Seems to be okay, Sue.", Alan pulled her out of her thoughts. "Good work."

Susan smiled at him happily. "Yay!" She stood up and embraced her friend, after what she attended to the screen again.

"How'd it go yesterday?"

"Oh!" She turned to him again. "It was wonderful! Sammy's just too cute, i mean, yes he slobberd my T-Shirt, but whatever, he's only a baby..." Then a thought struck her. "Tell me, Alan, has Kevin ever spoken to you about this system he created, this... how's it called... Grid?"

He looked perplexed and thought about it for a moment. "Well, I know that he uses my TRON program for his system... He hasn't told you anything about it?"

"No, he didn't want to and i didn't ask further questions."

Alan grinned. "Then why do you ask me?"

She giggled. "Don't think I'm sneaky! I was just unsure... He usually tells me everything..." Susan pulled a sulky face.

He put his hand on her shoulder and smiled at her tenderly. "To reassure you, I don't know much about too. I'm sure he has his reasons for keeping this secret."

She nodded slowly. When he turned to go, something crossed her mind: "Oh, by the way, Flynn and I play against eachother in the arcade tonight. I'm so excited! Will you come to watch?"

"Better not. Lora and I want to go out together."

"Okay... But I tell you: You really miss something!"

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX **

The masses cheered. An incredible amount of people surrounded the two of them. They dropped everything, even their own games which they're paid for, because noone wanted to miss out this duel of giants. Flynn was 40-39 up, but Susan was about to catch up.

"You're getting slow, Kev!", she joked while moving the joystick insanely fast.

"Tactics, hun, just tactics!"

"Really? Then why..." She made a quick move and the bell that showed that Susan made 2 points shrilled. "AM I BETTER THAN YOU, DUDE? Haha!" Everyone cheered again.

"Temporary situation!", he laughed.

They fully concetrated on the game again.

"See? I'm getting the next points!"

Susan grinned and began to cough suddenly.

"Do you wanna stop the game?", he asked without raising his eyes from the monitor.

"No, no, don't bother.", she gasped out and threw herself into the game again.

But another cough attack overcame her soon. Flynn stopped the game and looked over to her with worry in his eyes.

"Play on, man!", she managed to bring out.

He hesitated, took the joystick, after she had calmed down, in his hand though.

Susan joked croaky: "Wow, it's easy to distract you! I should remember this!"

Flynn grinned.

However, no 10 seconds passed when Susan suddenly pushed the STOPP button herself, turned away from the gaming machine and began to cough loudly. Flynn laughed: "Oh, now you revealed your tactitcs! C'mon, let's finish this game!"

But Susan didn't even look at him, just continued coughing in her right hand. There Flynn stopped laughing and came over to her.

"Hey, are you okay?" He wanted to pat her back but she hit his Hand away.

"I'm... okay... in a second."

She held her breath to force her body to calm down. "Ok, let's play..."

Flynn looked at her worried one more time and walked to his side then.

Susan caught at the joystick again. It felt greasy somehow. Strange... She certainl hasn't sweated that much. Alarmed, she looked down at the stick and saw that it was covered in blood. She got frightened and stumbled a step back. There she began to cough again and held her left hand in front of her mouth. She felt that it got wet too now. Wide-eyed she discovered new blood on her hand and had to cough even more. Her heartbeat became faster and faster and while she was coughing, she saw that she spat more and more blood. Her knees gave away. She Fell to the floor. Flynn ran over to her. He screamed something about ambulence. Susan didn't pay attention to it. She could only stare at her blood-covered hands in panic, until she eventually blacked out.


	3. 2 Backdoor (pt 1)

**_Author's Note: This chapter was really long so I split it up into 2 parts. Enjoy and review, my dear programs :D_**

**_- END OF LINE - _**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX **

**/Backdoor/**

"Lung cancer?! But she never smoked!"

Alan was outraged. He couldn't understand why he snarled at the doctor though. It wasn't his fault after all.

"This disease does not only occur at smokers. It's seldom indeed, but there are exeptions at times. In this case, for instances. her genes could be the elicitor."

Meanwhile, Flynn mutely sat on a chair next to them and stared at the floor. He couldn't forget it. Her gaze. The blood. Her shivering petite body in his arms. His best friend collapsed right in front of him and he just couldn't rid himself of these pictures of the incident. He had been with her all the time. Had held her hand in the ambulance, despite her unconsciousness. In hospital they assured him that Susan was out of serious danger and told him that she needs to rest for a while. He immediately had called Jordan to let her know that he'll stay in hospital over night and told Alan what happend who had been there in a few minutes.

Flynn was very tired after the shock now. He stared at his hands and remembered the expression on Susan's face when she had stared at hers.

"We have to carry out some tests yet, but all indications are that Miss Gifford's disease is already in an advanced stage. The hemoptysis, for instance. Has she ever complained of pains in her chest?"

"Damn, no, she's never complained about anything! She had her fits of coughing sometimes, but that's all! I thought she just had some kind of... asthma!"

"Well, it's absolutely tragic that she hadn't consulted a doctor earlier..." Alan glared at the man who swallowed and added: "... Which is not her fault at all. Such a disease is discovered by hazard in most cases and gets diagnosed quite late."

"And what does that mean for her now?", Alan asked annoyed.

"Well... If my suspicion gets allayed... I fear that she won't have much time left."

Alan didn't even try to hide how shocked he was. His jaw fell and with it his angry posture. At a single blow his body looked completely tired out. "W-what?", he breathed.

The doctor looked at him compassionately. "I'm sorry." Then he went to work again.

Alan flopped himself in a chair next to Flynn's and buried his face in his hands. The two of them sat there mutely without looking at eachother.

Time passed and then, after half an eternity, a nurse approached them.

"Mr. Flynn? Mr. Bradley?" They looked up at her. "Miss Gifford is able to receive a visit now."

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX **

It was 6:00. Susan was lying in a comfortable bed. The rising sun shined in from the window to her left and put a warm orange tone onto the walls of the white room. Outside one could hear some birds tweeting and singing. Idyllic. Beautiful.

But she didn't really realise anything of that. She was way too occupied with staring straightforward. She felt empty inside, couldn't think straight. About half an hour ago she had woken up and a friendly-looking doctor had explained the situation to her: He gave her 3 months. Maximum. She hadn't been able to speak. What should she say anyway? Thanks for the information?

Suddenly the door opened and Alan and Flynn entered hesitantly. "Hey...", Alan murmered. Flynn closer the door behind him. They positioned themselves right in front of her, but she didn't even look at them, still fixed her eyes on the wall.

Flynn eyed Susan for moment. She was pale and had dark shadows under her eyes. She looked so weak. He had never experienced her like that. Everything was so irreal.

"How are you, Sue?", Alan began to speak.

Finally she looked up. Her eyes were blank and the answer came drawn-out: "I... don't..." She sighed and closer her eyes. "I don't know." A nearly unbearable sinlence spread.

Alan looked out of the window. Even the sun has lost its brightness to him. He swallowed. "I suppose you know..." He bit bis tongue.

Susan nodded slowly. "Yeah, the doc told me. 3 months. Hopefully." Her voice broke.

Nobody knew what to say. Encouragement was out of place here, as much as compassion. Despite the oppressive mood, Susan was happy that her best friends were with her. She didn't have siblings nor contact with her parents since she ran away when she was 15. But she'd never felt alone. She always had close friends, mostly boys, because she couldn't stand most of the girls she knew. At college she's met Kevin Flynn whom she had a romantic relationship with for about 2 months. They broke up after discovering that they actually don't love eachother the way such a relationship requires. They loved eachother in an amicably way and they were the best friends ever since.

And now Flynn stood there, staring at the floor, unable to say something. He didn't know how to handle the situation. His best friend, whom he knew for about 8 years, would die. She'd be gone in 3 months at the latest. Forever.

After a long pause, Alan began to speak again: "If there's something you need... anything... We'll do everything."

Susan looked at him mockingly. "A longer life would be nice." She sat up and clung to the bed sheet in doing so. While she spoke with a quick, angry voice, tears rollen down her cheeks. "I know, I shouldn't do that. I shouldn't whine like a little girl, should rather make peace with myself, as they say, and accept that everyone dies sooner or later but FUCK THAT! I'm royally pissed! I mean, there're people who deserve that a thousand times more than me, or not?!"

Alan looked at her sadly. "Please, calm..."

"SHUT UP!"

Horrified he took a step back.

Susan wheezed. "Damn it all!" She wiped off her tears quickly. Her voice changed and sounded more desperate than furious. "I'm sorry, Alan, but it's just so unfair! There are thousands of things I wanted to do in my life and now I only have 3 months left!" She laughed bitterly. "Yeah and now I feel so weak because of the cancer that I can't even get one of them done!"

That was too much for Alan. He took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes and left the room with a quiet "Sorry...".

Susan took a deep breath, put her hand to her hurting chest and let herself sink down into the bed again. "Kev...", she said in a whisper. "I wanted to get so many things done. Finding the right guy, maybe get married, founding a family... I don't know. And the small things: Learning how to motorbike, or Thai Boxing, that's cool, or maybe founding a band. Finding a job that really makes me happy. I mean, working at Encom is great but there has to be something that makes me say: THAT'S IT! I thought I'd have so much time. I never had the courage to live like it was my last day, because I thought that it would be my last then 'cause of all the crazy stuff I'd be up to. I've never became the person I always wanted to be. Someone important. And now I' gonna die with the feeling to never have lived. To have missed everything..."

Flynn had sat down in a chair on the opposite meanwhile, sobbing into his hands. They stayed in their positions for a while, crying quietly.

Outside the birds tweeted cheerfully. The rushing noises of the passing cars and the light breeze which blew through the trees sounded loudly in the silence.

After half an eternity, Susan said: "Kev?"

He lifted his head . His eyes were red and swollen. "Hm?"

"I'm tired. And I bet you too. We both should go to sleep. Go home to Sam and Jordan and rest. Tomorrow we drink a coffee with Alan here, okay?"

He exhaled heavily. "Sure..."

Flynn stood up and just when he wanted to walk out of the door, he heard Susan say: "Kevin?"

"Yeah?"

"I changed my mind." He looked at her asking. Susan smiled lightly. "I'd rather have a huge Strawberry-Frappé with plenty of cream and sauce instead of the coffee tomorrow."

He laughed "Of course, man" and left the room.

Susan brought herself into the most comfortable position and fell asleep.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX **

It was warm outside. The sun was shining into the room again.

Susan sat upright in her bed and contentedly sipped on her XXL Strawberry-Frappé with extra cream. Flynn had told her that the man at the counter didn't want to give him an XXL Frappé at first, saying that they didn't have something like that, but when he recognised who was standing in front of him he ran into the kitchen at once and brought him the biggest Frappé he'd ever seen.

Now Susan grinned at the cream, wiggling with her feet like a little child. Alan was sitting on the right side next to her and Flynn on the ground because the chair was too uncomfortable for him. But since Susan didn't like the idea that this poor chair would stay fully uncared, Flynn had taken off his leather jacket and put it on it.

"How's your shake?", Alan asked.

"I beg you, Alan, that's a frappé not a shake.", Susan said with camp stuffy voice and screwed up her nose.

"Where's the difference?"

Susan blinked, looked at Flynn who just shruggedhis shoulders and looked down at her cream again. "It tastes good, thank you...", she murmered.

Alan laughed loudly and the others did so too.

Then he stood up. "I'll get something to eat. Do you want anything too?"

Both shook their head. It surprised him that Susan didn't want anything, since she normally never said no to food for free. Although she was short and trim, she could stuff herself with an unbelievable amount of food. Normally. But she was ill now. It was a wonder that she could have kept her weight stable til now.

When Alan had left the room, something struck Susan's mind. "Kevin, I had a dream last night that remembered me n something that I wanted to ask you."

"Go ahead!"

Susan hesitated. She knew he actually didn't want to tell her but she didn't want to die knowing that her best friend kept a secret from her. "What's the deal with... this Grid?"

Flynn stopped smiling. He considered for a moment. He actually didn't want to tell anybody about it yet but didn't Susan had the right to know now? She couldn't get things that made her happy done anymore, so wouldn't the knowledge about his secret cheer her up a little? "Well, you know it's... um..." He sighed.

"If you don't want to tell me then you don't have to.", Susan said slightly annoyed. Damn, why did she have to be so curious all the time?

"No, no, I WANT to tell you..." Flynn stood up and began to walk up and down the room. "I just have to think of how..."

This made Susan yet more curious. What's so special about it? She put her frappé on a bed stand and looked asking at her friend.

He stood still suddenly. "You remember the time when Ed Dillinger ran the show?"

"That's just a year ago, of course I remember." Susan grimaced. She got fired by this man just because Flynn was her friend.

"And you remember how I kicked him out then?"

She nodded. She didn't know how exactly her friend managed to prove that Dillinger had stolen his ideas, but eventually Flynn had taken over Encom last year.

"Well, I had to get hold of the data, but Ed had this protecting program, the MCP. So I had to get into the company-computer directly and Alan and Lora helped me. Back then Lora had this project, Lassecontrol which scans objects and digitzed them, like if they disappeared into the computer. That has something to so with... molecules and stuff..."

"Kev, come to the point!"

"Yeah, man, I try, I try..." He ran his fingers through his hair. "You know, I just wanted to hack into the system but the MCP didn't allow me to. And I was directly in front of that Lasercontrol-Thing..."

Susan sighed. "I still have no idea what you want to tell me..."

"It works, Susan! It's better than we ever pictured it!" He rushed to her bed and took her hand. He talked in whispers: "We always dreamed of how it'd look like inside a computer system. I know it now. I got in!"

"What?", Susan breathed in disbelief.

"I know it's hard to believe, Sue, but it's the truth." He stood up again. "The Grid is a system that I created. Under the arcade I have a computer which I can get into with the help of Lasercontrol whenever I want to. Programs are like people, circuits like freeways. It's... a digital world."

Susan looked at him with mouth agape. Did he really believe in what he said? Has her friend lost his mind? "Kevin, listen, programs don't live..."

Flynn vented a sigh. "It's true. I know it sounds crazy... You can believe or not, your decision, but please don't think I'm mad. Or a liar. I've made too many sacrifices for the Grid and TRON..."

"TRON? Like the game and the security program?"

"Yes. Alan's program TRON looks after the system. He's a real tough guy..."

Susan was shocked at that. Her best friend was as mad as a hatter!

Slowly she got out of bed. Immediately she became giddy but she tried to suppress that. "Kev...", she said lovingly while approaching him. "I think, the message about my disease yesterday overcharged you..."

"Sue, I'm not crazy."

"No, of course not, I never said that, but..." Suddenly everything was spinning and she almost fell to the floor, if Flynn wasn't there to catch her.

"Damn, Susan, are you okay?"

"Yeah, let go of me! I don't need your help!" She broke free from him. All of a sudden she was foaming with rage. On the one hand because the thought just had struck her that Flynn lied to her to cheer her up with this fantastic story of another world, on the other hand because she couldn't even walk 5 steps on her own without falling to the ground of exhaustion.

She took a deep breath and said then: "Tell your fairy-tales someone who wants to hear them, Kevin! I get myself something to eat now." She stepped to the door, opened it and wheezed of exhaustion again. But she didn't want to give up.

"Susan, please, lie down a bit..."

"No!", she hissed. But suddenly everything around her became blurred and she got giddy again. If he hadn't had the door handle in her hand, she would have fallen to the ground and so she clung to it woth both hands now and breathed heavily. Flynn wanted to go to her rescue, but she screeched: "I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!" Shortly after that though, her stomach churned and she vomited right into the corridor. She couldn't hold her ground anymore and fell to the floor, where she threw up again. Flynn called for help and Held her light brown hair back. "Please, let me help you..."


	4. 2 Backdoor (pt 2)

**/Backdoor/ pt 2 **

Susan looked out of the window. It's been 6 weeks since she got to know about her disease and she spend every single day in hospital with chemotherapy, radiotherapy and things like that, which she knew wouldn't save but only tantalise her. She'd drastically lost weight and her coughing attacks came more and more frequently. The sun wasn't shining for days. Just gray sky all day.

The first days, there have been many people who bothered to pay her a visit, colleagues and other good acquaintances, but the more time passed the less people came by. It felt like they already forgot her. Like they had made their peace with the situation before Susan could do so herself.

However, she was never alone. Susan was visited by Alan and Kevin daily. Sometimes also Lora and Jordan with Sam swung by, but her two best friends were the only ones she really needed.

For all that... She was depressed. Nothing could raise her spirits. Nothing but...

The Grid. She dreamed of it every night, of wandering programs, however they looked like, dreamed of a vivid world... And every time she woke up and was terribly disappointed about this boring room she was lying in and the yet more boring gray sky outside.

This night she had had the most intensive dream which gave her an idea.

An absolutely insane one but internalised every single gleam of hope she could get.

She asked the nurse to call Flynn and telling him that she urgently had to speak with him. Now she waited, staring out one the window, and hoped that her plan wasn't too insane.

It took half an hour until someone knocked on the door.

"Come in!", she said loudly and had to cough instantly.

"Hey!", Flynn said as he entered.

Susan tried a little smile. "Hi."

He sat down on a chair next to her, moved his butt to one side and another and laughed: "Man, they really only got uncomfortable chairs here, right?" Then he stayed in his position, held up a finger to symbolise that he just tested if this position was the best, sighed and began to move again. Susan laughed weakly. Flynn was a funny person. When he finally gave up to look for comfort, he said: "Aaaanyways... The nurse said you had to speak to me. I turned chicken when I saw that the call was from the hospital, girl..."

"Don't worry, I don't feel worse than usual." Susan took a deep breath. "Okay. Well... um... I wanted to talk to you about something we'd already talked about..." She paused and looked into his eyes. "About the Grid."

Flynn hadn't count with something like that. "The... Grid?" Thoughtfully he put his hand on his chin. "Okay..."

"You know, since you told me about it, I always dream of it, of the lightcycles of the TRON game and so on."

"And...", he asked hesitantly. "What do you want to know about it?"

"Kevin... I want you to look into my eyes and tell me that it's the truth, that there really is a world inside of the computer."

He straightened himself and looked at her seriously. "It's true. I never lied to you."

She nodded slowly. "Okay... I believe you."

"Really?", he asked surprised.

"You'd never lie to me. I mean you're crazy but not as crazy as to come up with something like that."

Flynn leaned back and smiled. "Thank you."

She smiled back. But now it had to become serious, she'd reached the most important part of her plan, the most important question. "Kev, that's not all I wanted to know yet. I wanted to ask if... If you are... entering the system, aren't you becoming a file in the computer too? I mean, when you're inside, could someone see you as some kind of code on the screen?"

"Well, I could never try. Nobody but you knows about it yet... But I'm quite sure that it works like that. That's how Lasercontrol works."

"And could someone do with it everything one can do with the other codes too then? Like, delete, move..." She swallowed. "Copy?"

He furrowed his brow. "Uum..." Suddenly the truth dawned upon him. He stood up quickly. "No... You don't want to..."

"Yes, Kev, please!"

"No, I won't do that!"

"Kev, c'mon!"

"No!" He quickly, almost panicly, paced up and down.

Susan sighed. "Kev...", she said slightly annoyed.

"No."

"Kevin!"

"No!"

"FLYNN!", she shouted and atoned for it with another cough attack.

Flynn stood by her side at once and asked: "Are you okay?"

She took a handkerchief and coughed into it heftily. When she slowly stopped coughing, she looked at the handkerchief, which was full of blood. "NO, NOTHING'S OKAY!", she screamed, held the handkerchief demonstratively up and threw it away. "Damn, I'm desperate, Kevin! I'm a 27 year old woman who'll die soon! And I actually didn't live yet! Shit, I staved it all off! So if there's just the tiniest chance to survive, I'LL GRAB IT!" Susan sank back into her her pillow. Tears rolled down her cheek. "I just want to live... Kevin, I need you. Why don't you want to help me?"

"I... I know, Susan, I know... But I... I can't..."

"Why not?", she whimpered.

"You don't know this world. If I really let you enter it, copy your file and restore it, so that you're perfectly healthy again, you couldn't come back! You'd be a program, one witn the memories of a user indeed, but still just a program! You wouldn't be you..."

"What makes us what we are? What does it mean to live? To consist of flesh and blood? No, it's our decisions, our actions, our memories..."

"You'd be imprisoned!"

"The only thing I'd miss were my friends. I'd still have you then and wait, until you tell Alan and Sam about it. Then I'll see everyone again."

"I'm not always there. You'd be alone in a world you don't know, in which everything is different. That'd be a hell of a way to live."

"But it is a way..."

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

It's been 2 days since she'd talked to Flynn about it. He'd considered it finally but said no.

"It'd be too dangerous...", he had said.

Too dangerous? What's the worst that could happen? Could she die? She had to smirk at the thought of that. In a few weeks she'd be dead anyway.

The last 2 days Susan had come to a decision: She will survive. She already had a plan: She'd go to the arcade herself, look for Flynn's secret office, hack into his computer and try to copy herself. Flynn had said that he could create programs from the inside, so why should an ordinary copy be a problem?

It would be difficult though. She had become weaker and could barely walk on her own. But she'd prepare herself as good as possible: She had eaten more than usual, what she almost threw up again but she had forced her body to keep it. She had always had a good body-awareness and a will of iron. Furthermore, she had observed the nurses, when a shift began and when the corridor was empty. She also had asked Alan to bring her some of her pretty clothes under the pretext that she wanted to see herself being beautiful in the mirror before she died. He had brought her a nice black dress with white dots on it. Perfect! She actually like trousers more but a Jean would be far to heavy for her now anyway. The last of her preparations was something she wasn't proud of. She had stolen Alan's key ring because she knew that Flynn had given him a spare key for the arcade. She felt sorry for that but it was necessary.

It was 0:13. Susan calmly lay in her bed and stared to the ceiling. Mentally, she prepared herself for everything. She knew that a nurse would come in a minute to see if she slept. She tried not to let her body get tired. She tensed up every single muscle several times. There she heard how the door handle was pushed down. She closer her eyes quickly and listened. The nurse poised for a moment and closed the door after that. Susan grinned. Her fingertips prickled. Se was excited, what gave her extra power.

She stood up slowly and waited until the dizziness was bearable. Then she quietly get out of her bed and felt her way in the darkness to the chair right in front of her. When she reached it, she waited until her eyes got used to the darkness and walked to the window where she raised the blind to let the lamplight from outside into the room. Now she could see way better. Susan put on the dress Alan had brought her and went to the door. She turned around one more time.

On the bed stand were some folded slips of paper. She'd written farewell letters to Alan and some others, including Sam. She had written on it that he shouldn't read it until he was a teenager. Otherwise he wouldn't understand.

Just as she was about to push the door handle down, she realized that there was a mirror on her left side. He hesitated for a moment but finally walked over to it.

She didn't like what she saw. Her rips were visible on her cleavage, the dress didn't even fit. She had dark shaddows under her eyes and hollow cheeks. Her legs were also extremely thin. 'I look like a stork.', Susan thought and nearly had to laugh about herself. She'd never had problems with her weight, never needed a diet to stay slim. That was the first time in her life that she found herself ugly.

She looked away quickly and tried to concentrate on her plan.

She walked over to the door again, took a deep breath and pushed the door handle down.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

"Huh?", Flynn breathed tiredly into the phone.

"Hi. I'm sorry that I call you that late..."

Flynn stood up and walked out of the bedroom to not wake Jordan. "It's ok, Alan. I'm kinda used to it. What's up?"

"Well, I just wanted to go to the company again 'cause I forgot something important there. But I can't find my keys! I wanted to ask if you could check your place."

"Sure, man. Hold the line." Flynn went down to the living room and began to search for Alan's keys. A few minutes passed without him having success in finding them. While he continued to search he asked: "Where have you seen them the last time?"

"I think that was when I went to visit Susan in hospital."

"Hm, maybe you just..." He stood still abruptly. He caught his breath.

"Flynn?"

"Tell me... do you also have the spare key for the arcade on your key ring?"

"Um... Yes, why?"

Flynn hung up and sprinted off.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Susan got out of the taxi.

"That's 26$ in all, Miss."

She looked into her purse, where she only found 2 hundred dollar notes. 'Whatever, I don't have use for it anyway...'

She took one of those and handed it to the taxi driver. "Keep the change."

"That's a hundred dollar note, Miss!"

"I know and I said: Keep the change."

He looked entirely confused. "Tha-Thanks, Miss!"

"All right..."

She turned to go but the driver asked: "What's your name, Miss? So that I can pray for you in church."

She smiled lightly. "Susan Gifford."

"Thanks again, Miss Gifford!", the nice old man said and drove off.

She was glad to make others happy. Although she didn't believe in god, she liked the idea of someone praying for her. To late, unfortunately.

Susan turned around and sighted Flynn's Arcade for a second.

Her plan had worked so far. Nobody had been in the corridor, only once, whereupon she had hidden in a restroom, after what could steal herself away easily. Fortunately there had been some taxis in front of the hospital and she literally let herself fall into it. Between gasping and trying to suppress the nausea, she had croaked out the words: "Flynn's Arcade".

She walked up to the arcade with faltering steps, took Alan's keys out and unlocked the padlock at the entrance. She had to hold onto the bars for a second, taking a deep breath, before she finally had the strength to push the door open.

Inside it was pitch-black. The light of the street lamps only lighted the entrance area. Since Susan had almost lived here the past years, except of the last weeks of course, she knew where the current switch was, felt it in the darkness and pushed it up. Immediately, the light and the arcade games went on and the speakers began to blast out the music she loved. Susan smiled and closed her eyes for a moment. Eventually she was here again.

"...broken in two, two, two...", she sang along and began to look for an access to Flynn's underground office.

She looked for it everywhere... without success. After half an hour she almost wanted to give up. Her strength vanished progressively and show couldn't find this damn office. Time was running out.

She leaned against a wall and took a deep breath. She already felt quite exhausted. Soon she wouldn't be able to stand anymore. Then everything, her plan, her hopes, would have been for nothing.

Desperately and soaked with sweat she glanced around. There something stroke her eye. On the end of the corridor was a single arcade cabinet above which big letters were enthroned: TRON. Susan smiled and walked up to it.

'TRON... Are you real?'

Suddenly her head spun. She barely could reach the arcade cabinet and leaned against it's side. She breathed heavily with her eyes closed. She forced herself to calm down, but didn't quite manage to. She sobbed. A little tear rolled down her cheek. She clenched her right fist and hit the machine behind her, causing it to give in and be pushed back a little.

"Oops..."

Susan turned around and wanted to return it to its previous position. But as she put her hand on it, she saw some metal shining through the gap behind the machine on her right.

She took a closer look, puzzled. "No, right?" A big grin started to occupy her face.

She pushed the machine aside completely and cleared the way towards a door.

"Impossible..."

New energy flowed through her body, but she knew it wasn't going to last too long. She had to hurry and no time to lose.

She opened the door and stepped into a dark corridor. By instinct, she walked straight and felt the first step under her foot. Further away she saw light. Slowly, she proceeded to the end of the flight of stairs.

On her left was a big door with a lock. "Damnit!"

Susan didn't have a key for that. But she's gotten too far to give up now. She hurried up to the arcade again, into Flynn's actual office and got a pipe wrench from the storeroom. When she arrived at the door again, Susan braced herself and fortunately broke the lock with the first hit.

She pushed the door open.

It was an untidy room. On the right hand side was a big desk and on the left some electronic devices.

Susan dropped the pipe wrench and entered the room. She immediately sat down on the chair in front of the desk, breathing heavily.

No! She couldn't afford to take a breather, not now. Susan sighed and wanted to stand up, supporting herself against the table surface. She winced when it suddenly flared up and a computer monitor became visible under all the slips of paper that covered the desk.

Yes! She has found Flynn's computer. She buckled down to work at once.

It was quite easy to log in since she knew Flynn inside out and could think of his password quickly. But what now? Susan thought for a moment. How was the thing called that had dragged Flynn into the computer? Laser... Something with... She winced in excitement when she remembered the name.

**_\: find_Laserconrtol _**

**_\: LLLSDLasercontrol _**

'Well then, shit or bust...'

**_\: bin/LLLLSDLasercontrol -ok _**

**Aperture Clear? **

** Yes No **

Susan held her breath. Everything was silent around her. She closed her eyes. "Bye, world..."

** Yes - Enter **

Suddenly, everything was illuminated brightly for a second, just to return to pitch blackness again.

Susan was lying on the floor and gasped for air. Around her, everything was spinning. She was feeling incredibly nauseous, but she suppressed it. Her limbs felt so weak she could barely move. But when she could finally think straight, she thought to herself: 'I'm on the Grid.'

She opened her eyes. Everything around her was dark. Only a small window directly in front of her let some light shine in. It was still Flynn's underground office, but something was different.

Struggling, she sat up. She immediately felt more miserable, but she ignored that. She had to get this done. So she pulled herself back on the chair using the last of her strength. She took several attempts, but eventually succeeded. When she touched the tabletop, however, nothing happened.

"No...", she gasped. "No, no, where's the screen, what...?"

Then it hit her. 'I am BEHIND the screen. And I'm a user. I do whatever I want here...'

It was like a dream. If you were aware of the fact that it was your own dream, you could control it. Now she would control this world.

Susan briefly contemplated and looked around. She took a deep breath and simply tried something.

She got up and sat down on the floor. With her eyes closed, she concentrated. Suddenly, a pane appeared in front of her, and she saw her own reflection. She touched it with her right hand. The pane lit up where her fingertips rested. Suddenly, in the top left corner, text appeared:

New Program or copy?

"Copy...", Susan rasped. Intense pain flashed through her body and she started coughing. Suddenly, however, she noticed how blue rectangles were starting to occupy her feet and entire body. A female voice announced: "Scan initiated."

Susan kept coughing into her hand and noticed it getting wet from all the blood.

By now her entire body was cluttered with glowing rectangles.

"Scan finished. Starting Upload."

Susan looked up for a moment and noticed the glowing blue rectangles appearing in front of her again. But this time they formed a frame, which slowly took the form of a human lying on the ground.

It was a wonderful thing to watch.

Pieces of skin spanned the glowing body made of rectangles, and slowly a new creature took shape. But it was not entirely new. The woman lying there, on the floor, looked exactly like Susan.

A tear rolled down her own cheek, and then her power faded. She lied down on the floor, still coughing lightly, next to her second self and breathed heavily.

"Upload completed."

Susan smiled gently before feeling a stinging pain and everything went bright again. And And within a matter of seconds, she found herself in Flynn's office in the real world, in Flynn's arms.

"Susan! Are you alright? Susan, talk to me!"

She looked at him through half-open eyelids. "I made it...", she rasped.

"What? I..."

"Kev..." She put her hand on his cheek and whispered: "I love you like a brother. I'm sorry..." Then she shut her eyes completely, and her fast breathing slowed down. "Promise you'll save me..."

"Yeah, I've already called an ambulance! They'll be here in a minute, just don't give up now!"

"No, I mean inside. Promise..."

"I promise! I promise! I'll promise you anything! Just stay with me!"

Susan smiled and breathed out, but not in anymore.


	5. 3 Digital Frontier

**/Digital Frontier/ **

A lot of people had attended the funeral. ENCOM members, regulars of the gaming hall, other acquaintances, Alan's and Flynn's family. It had been raining all day, as if the sky was crying with the people at the cemetery. Even little Sam seemed to feel what was going on and had cried the entire morning.

After the funeral, Alan and Lora came to Flynn's place, and they'd all drunk a toast to their beloved Susan. Not one of them could hold back the tears.

Just as the women were sharing their experiences with Susan with each other, Alan took Flynn aside. "How are you doing?"

Flynn frowned.

"Well, I mean... You were the one who found her in the gaming hall, god knows what she was doing there..."

"Oh... I..." Flynn didn't know what to say.

His best friend had died in his arms. It had been the worst day of his life. His memories of that day were vivid: Susan, pressing Enter and getting digitalized by Lasercontrol just as he wanted to rush into the room. The screen, showing that her file was being copied. Himself, how he hastily entered commands to get her out of there again. Susan, how she took her last breath in his arms with a smile on her face. How he was shouting and begging her to stay. How he carefully put her down on the floor and tried to resuscitate her. To no avail. Just like the paramedics who came minutes later. No success. "Time of death: 2:29", one of them announced, sighing. Flynn refused to believe it and almost collapsed. She was just lying there, dead, still with a faint smile on her lips.

He remembered it clearly.

"... I'll manage, thanks."

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Susan had been dead for 3 days now. Flynn hadn't left the house since then. He wasn't up for anything. Even the reopening of the arcade in 4 weeks. Flynn had been dead set against reopen it at all, after what had happened in there. But even Alan, who pretty much never touched an arcade cabinet, recommended him to do so. "Susan would have wanted it. She loved this place. My God, she even wanted to die there! She'd have wanted that people still could have fun there, just like she did, and you know that..."

Alan himself had received a farewell letter, wherein Susan described all her feelings for him and each detail about how she'd felt in certain moments of her friendship, point blank. A some passages he had to laugh, at some he had to cry. The letter really corresponded with Susan's way to speak. 'I want to be honest with you. My first thought when I saw you at ENCOM, was: Shiiit, hot ass!' Sometimes he had to do both, laugh and cry, for example at his favourite part: 'You and Flynn, you have always been the best friends I could imagine. I love you like a brother and I always will.

Susan

P.S.: YOUR GLASSES ARE THE KILLER! Don't let others tell you otherwise and don't you dare to throw them away! Never!'

Sometimes she wrote as if nothing bad had happened to her. That's how she was: an optimistic woman all through. That's why it had always broken Alan's heart, when he'd seen her cry because of her disease. But he always replaced such thoughts with other ones, happier ones, like Susan drinking her frappé with a smile. The thought of her beaming smile had been the only thing that had let him fall into sleep the last days.

Flynn, however, couldn't sleep at all. Everytime he managed to doze off, he woke up some minutes later, bathed in sweat and shivering because of nightmares.

But there was something else. Another reason deprived him of sleep: There was a file existing on the Grid for 3 days. A file, of which he didn't know if he should activate it.

'It wouldn't be her...', he thought to himself again and again.

Or... would it actually be her? Had Susan been possibly right that you define yourself by actions and memories and not by blood? But how could a program contain human memories within itself at all?

Questions upon questions and he couldn't cope with them.

Yet awake again, he trudged down to the kitchen in the middle of the night. He looked out of the window and exhaled heavily. Outside everything was dark. A light breath of air breezed around the house and caused the leaves of the trees in the courtyard to rustle.

Just as he wanted to sit down, something struck his eye. On the kitchen table was an envelope, on which was written in big letters: SAM.

Flynn took the envelope, hesitated a moment and opened it. On the back side, Susan had actually prohibited specifically to open it until Sam was old enough to understand everything, but he couldn't resist now. He felt so weak, he had to read something she wrote, like if she spoke to him.

At the beginning Susan explained who she was and how she got to know Sam's father. She also wrote how much fun it had been to look after him and then about...

Flynn held his breath.

'Sam, to be honest, I'm not dead. I'm sure your dad has told you about the Grid. I'm there. As a program though, but I'm alive. If you ever want to meet me, I'd be so glad if you visited me, honey. I know that all of it sounds unbelievable, but it's true.

I'm waiting for you, little Sam.

Your (cuddling) Susan'

Jordan was woken by a rumble that came from downstairs. When she checked if everything's alright, she saw her husband, just as he was about to open the front door.

"Kevin!", she shouted.

He turned around.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I have to get something done." With these words he rushed out, leapt onto his Ducati and drove off to the arcade.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

There was no time left. He'd thought that Susan had created a completed program, but when he had turned the computer on, a note on the monitor informed him about the incompleteness of the latest upload. That meant, that the program lost bits every second it remained unused. He damned himself for not having acted earlier.

But this source code... It possibly could damage many things, maybe even destroy everything he had worked for all these days, everything he had created.

However, he had promised it to her.

**\: bin/LLLLSDLasercontrol -ok **

**Aperture Clear? **

** Yes No **

Yes, it'd work better from the inside. Then he could also try to fix the emerged damage. He imploringly hoped that it'd work.

** Yes - Enter **

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Susan opened her eyes widely and shot up at one go. Her whole body tingled like if she had put her hand into an electric outlet. She breathed heavily. The last thing she could remember was Flynn and a piercing pain in her chest. Now, nothing hurt. This tingle was strong, but pleasant. She really felt alive thereby.

Wait. Alive?

Now other memories rushed through her mind. She had been lying in Flynn's arms and pictorially felt how death had reached out for her. She had died, she knew that.

"Susan...", a familiar voice said hesitantly.

She looked around and spotted Flynn who tried to hold back the tears in his eyes. "Kevin?"

Now they ran down his cheeks in big drops. "Susan!" He put his arms around her and pressed her against himself. "Susan, you're alive!"

"I'm alive...", she whispered into his chest.

He's made it. She was on the Grid. Alive. Flynn saved her.

"I'm alive!", she panted and hugged him tightly while crying big tears of joy.

It was over. Suffering has come to an end finally.

They moved apart and Flynn took her face into his hands. "How are you feeling?", he asked happily.

"Great!" Susan grinned like a Cheshire cat. She couldn't believe it. She. Was. Alive! And not only that.

Only now she realised that she was sitting in a dark room on some kind of white block, which was surrounded by a bright gleam, covered with a likewise white blanket. She put her head under the blanket and sighted her body: slender but not lean. There was nothing left of that something she had seen in the mirror. But herself, Susan was there.

She looked up at Flynn again, holding the blanket tight in order to not bare her naked body. "Kev, you..." She smiled and cried a little bit more. "You saved my life."

"You saved it yourself, Sue..." He hugged her again.

Flynn was deliriously happy.

When he had gotten to the Grid, he had gone a bit into hysterics since Susan's copy hadn't been, where it had ought to be, in the replica of Flynn's arcade. He had thought that it had to be there because when Susan had built this copy, she'd barely been able to walk, what meant that she had not been able to leave the place where Lasercontrol sent every User to. "Bit, tell me where to find the program 'Susan Gifford', and be quick 'bout it!", he had told a little hovering thing which had just answered: "Yes!"

Now that this copy was activated, all his doubts were gone. This woman in his arms was more Susan than she had been the last 2 months of her life. Soft cheeks, a beaming smile... This was her.

He looked into her eyes. "What's the last thing you can remember?"

"You!", she laughed. "Your face. I think you said something like... that you would save me. And you did!" She kissed his cheek a few times. "THANKSTHANKSTHANKS!"

Flynn also laughed. But he still had to check something. He grabbed her by the shoulders. "What else?"

"EVERYTHING!" She looked at him with wide eyes. "Kev, I remember everything! Even better than I ever did! I remember when I got the diagnosis. I remember Sam's birth. I remember what a mess my first date has been. I even remember how I've eaten little beatles with 5, saying it was in the name of science! I almost forgot about these things !"

"Well, you quasi have copied every little bit of you, every synapse, and now that electricity flows through the data, it probably got activated."

"Man, there's so much crossing my mind... Damn, ich think i get a headache!", she said rubbing her temples.

"Maybe I pumped too much energy into you. Your system is probably a bit overloaded..."

Susan giggled. "That sounds much better than just saying migraine."

Just as she wanted to add something, she noticed someone from the corner of her eye.

"Alan!", she said surprised.

"Oh!" Flynn beckoned him over and explained to her: "That's not Alan, Sue. That's Tron."

On his way to find Susan, Flynn had met Tron who had told him that he had brought the program to a save place where she couldn't loose data After he had found her in the arcade. He actually had thought to find Flynn there, since the Portal has been open, but he just found this slowly derezzing program. He had asked Flynn who she was and he had explained to him that she was the copy of a User called Susan Gifford, a friend of him.

Tron had been totally off-guard, but now that he stood next to this copy of a User, it didn't feel different than being with an ordinary program. "Greetings, program."

Susan giggled. "Um... Grettings..."

Tron smiled at her. "So you know my User?"

"Yeah, he's one of my best friends. And you're his security program, right?"

Tron nodded.

She eyed him up. Basically, he looked just like Alan, but there were some differences: Tron was much more muscular and he didn't wear glasses. He wore a black suit with several bright lights on it. Susan had never seen something like that before.

"Well then...", Flynn interrupted her thoughts. "Let's find an accommodation for you, eh?"

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Susan lay on a white bed in a white room. Though it was completely different from the hospital room she had spent her last weeks, before her 'rebirth', as she called it. It was way bigger, with a small commode on her left and a cupboard on the right. Adjacent was a bathroom and a huge living room which was furnished generously, for example with a comfortable couch, a fireplace in front of it and a big shelf near the apartment entrance door.

After their reunion, Flynn and Tron had guided Susan out of the room she had been activated in, into some kind of an elevator that brought them deeper into the underground. They had gotten to a white gleaming corridor. Everything was so bright!

When they finally had reached the apartment, Flynn had told her about what had happened in between. All in all quite depressing, but it satisfied Susan somehow, that so many people mourned her. If they only knew where she was now...

"What does ist mean to be a program?", she had asked him and Tron.

"You have to persue the occupation you are written for, otherwise you get deleted." Susan had looked at Tron wide-eyed, so he added: "But that doesn't apply to you. You are... different."

"I'm different..."

Then Flynn had had to go because he desperately needed some sleep after all that excitement and before he had left, he had told her to do the same. Well, he had said she should take a sleeping cycle "That's what it's called for programs.", he had told her.

Tron had wanted to say good bye with a handshake but Susan hadn't been able to stop herself from hugging him. He had been confused, smiled though.

"Susan.", Flynn had looked at her a bit in worry after Tron had left. "He's not Alan, I hope, you're aware of that..."

"Of course I am! I like him though. I like everything here! It's breathtaking!"

"But you haven't seen much yet!"

"That this world exists at all is... Awesome!" She had sighed and hugged him again. "Thank you for bringing me here."

"I'm just so happy to see you again."

"Me too."

He had promised to come back soon and had left.

Susan now stared at the glowing ceiling, lying in her soft bed. She was alive. She couldn't believe it. She was alive, healthy and living on the Grid, which she had dreamt of so many times. She could hardly wait to see more of this world. Susan felt it. She knew it. Here, in this digital world, she would be happy.

She had to.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

_**Author's Note: I'm sorry it took so long guys D: hope this chapter cheered some of you up, at least the ones who have been sad about Susan's death. A tip from me that gave me a better feeling for the whole story: listening to Daft Punk's TRON: Legacy soundtrack :D for this chapter, especially the scene wherein Susan is activated again, I listened to 'Father and Son'.Maybe that'll help a bit :) I'm going to give you some music advice in the following chapters too, if you don't mind :P Oh, and I promise there will be more action, I mean... she's on the Grid now! ;) If there are any questions so far don't hesitate to ask :D Aaaand don't forget to REVIEW :DD**_

_**- END OF LINE**_ -


	6. 4 Identity

_**Author's Note: IIIII AM SOOO TERRIBLY SORRY! I know there's no excuse for such a long wait (when I have to wait for an update for like a month, I'm always like MWAA SQUEEE) but I had my Matura (which are some kinda final exams in austria and btw I PASSED MY MATH EXAM ON FRIDAY *-* feel free to be happy with me, folks! :DDD) Anyway, I hope you're not too mad at me to miss out on this amazing story :D (*ahem* yeah greetings, ego)**_

_**One thing to mention: For this story I used the TRON time system which is described in the **_**TRON: Legacy The Official Movie Magazine**_**. If you don't know it, don't worry, here is the most important fact about it:**_

_**1 year in our world feels like 50 years on the Grid, and 1 year on the Grid is called a cycle there, although you can also use this term as a short form for day cycles or millicycles.**_

_**If you want/need more information about this, visit the site .com or ask me directly (I LOOOVE the whole TRONiverse anyway, so I like to talk about it anytime)**_

_**Now I hope you feel briefed and ready for this new chapter! :) And please REVIEW! (even if you only want to complain about the late update _) Enjoy!**_

**- END OF LINE -**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**/Identity/ **

**Day 6 on the Grid **

Susan was bored. She lied on the couch of her apartment and played with her disc. She spun it around her finger, threw it up now and then just to spin it again afterwards. She had received it from CLU.

CLU. He was the system administrator here and a very nice and polite program. Before Flynn had left 6 days ago, he'd explained the situation to him. So when she met him for the first time 5 days ago, or day cycles as they're called here sometimes, he wasn't surprised by her appearance. All the more, Susan was.

_"Man, Flynn chose just the right thing for me!", Susan laughed happily as she walked down the corridor with Tron. _

_Her friend had programmed her an outift just after he had left the system. Now she was wearing her favourite jeans, a brown CCR t-shirt and a black leather jacket, which were a bit modified: Fogerty and Co. shined in a white light, just like the inside of the jacket and two stripes on both sides of the trouser's legs. _

_"You look a bit like Flynn. Up to now, it feels like you were a User rather than a program!", Tron laughed._

_"Well, you said I was different...", she giggled. _

_Susan was glad that she hit off with him that fast. Her open-mindedness always made it possible to make friends easily. _

_Fortunately, one of CLU's offices was on the same floor, so the walk wasn't long._

_"You think he'll like me?" _

_"Probably. I couldn't think of a reason for him to not like you." _

_The corners of Susan's mouth turned up so fast that she looked like a happy little kid, signifying something like 'Aw thank you' through blinking a few times._

_They came to a round door that opened itself with a sibilance when they approached it, which reminded her of the ones in Star Wars and other SciFi movies. She wanted to say 'Wow' at that, but the appearance of the man who stood just some steps away from the door and turned to them now totally threw her off track. _

_Black trousers, black T-Shirt and black leather jacket. That man wore the same outfit as Flynn did very often. And he had the same hair. And the same stature. And the same face. He looked exactly like Flynn. _

_Susan didn't know how to deal with this situation. CLU's appearance was identical to Flynn's, her best friend. _

_He smiled and walked up to her and Tron, turning away from the big screens that he and several other programmes in the room had sighted. These others didn't even pay a bit of attention to Susan._

_"Susan, that's CLU. CLU, Susan.", Tron introduced them to eachother. _

_CLU shook her hand. "Greetings, program!" _

_Perplexed she stuttered: "Um... yeah...greetings..."_

_"Flynn told me you were different than other programs. Similar to me." He politely smiled at her, but she was too taken aback to give a good answer. _

_Flynn just as well could simply play a trick on her, only pretending he was CLU. _

_"Yes... yeah, maybe..." _

_CLU's wide grin faded slowly when he realised how puzzled she was. "Are you okay?" _

_Susan closed her eyes and laughed. "Yes! I'm great. I'm just..." She rubbed her eyes and looked at him again. Intriguing. "Oh, man..."_

_Tron and CLU joined in laughing. "I'm sorry, it was alright with Tron somewhat... But you look exactly like Kev!", she giggled loudly. _

_"Well... Thanks!" After they had calmed down CLU asked curiously: "So you have memories about the world outside?" _

_"Yes, i remember my whole life, everything I experienced and so on."_

_"Well, strictly speaking, you haven't experienced those things..."_

_"Strictly speaking, I'm already dead, but who cares? I'm here, nothing else matters." She smiled._

_"Ah yes, before I forget..." CLU called a program that hastly came running, carrying a circular black disc, just as the one on Tron's and, how Susan now realised, every program's back. "This..." CLU took it into his hand and held it up. "... is an identity disc. On there, all your experiences will be imprinted. You had better not lose it, otherwise you could lose all your memories." He handed it to Tron who in turn positioned himself behind Susan. _

_"Ready?", he asked her._

_"Um... I guess so." _

_He plugged the disc into the input on her back. Suddenly Susan felt a strong tingling sensation rushing through her entire body, from her trunk, through her limbs to the tips of all her fingers and toes. Every part of her skin prickled pleasantly. It didn't last for long though, was only there for a second. But it felt oh so good. It really made her feel alive. _

The meeting with CLU had been one of her highlights up to now. It was short, but that stood to reason, since he was the system administrator. You have to bear a high level of responsibility in such a job, there's so much to do.

Susan wished she'd had much to do as well. It had been 6 days since she saw Flynn after her activation. 6 days since the last time she wasn't bored.

_After the conversation with CLU, Tron guided Susan into her room again. _

_"Now show me more of this world!", Susan said in excitement. _

_Tron sighed and answered in a serious tone. "I can't. Before Flynn had left the system, he forbid to let you leave this floor..." _

_"What?! Why?"_

_"He said it's too risky, too dangerous for now. You'll have to wait until his return." _

Too dangerous. Pah! She had fought death once already and she could do it again.

Each day she spent in her own four walls, examining the technology of her rooms and her disc, which was at least a bit of solace, since her memories had been imprinted on it, whereby she could watch them whenever she wanted to. This was her main preoccupation.

Because of all that, she became impatient. It hurt her a bit that Flynn deprived her from seeing all of this world, the world she had dreamt of.

It had been 6 days since Flynn was there. It couldn't be much longer anymore.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**Day 22 **

22 days.

It's been 22 days since Susan last saw her best friend. CLU couldn't help her over that fact. He was nice, of course, but had pretty much never time for her. When she visited him, which occurred very often, she could only sit there and watch the other programs do their work.

She felt increasingly lonely. Nobody really talked to her. Even Tron hadn't paid her a visit as he had much to do with the protection of the system.

Susan lied on her bed, bored yet again.

Why didn't Flynn keep his promise? Why didn't he show up? He knew that she waited here. Why did he leave her alone for so long, grounding her? Had he forgotten her?

No.

She shook her head to get rid of that thought.

He would never forget her. He was her best friend. He had been so happy to see her alive. Still, he hadn't visited for 22 days.

Maybe something held him up. Maybe something bad happened. Maybe there's something with Sam! Flynn had to have a reason for not coming. But still...

Susan took the disc from her back and loaded a file. It wasn't a special memory, something simple. There were Flynn and Jordan. They stood at a pier and Susan just tried to take a photo of them.

_"A bit to the right!"_, she said.

Flynn looked down and realised that he was already standing at the edge of the pier. _"Do you wanna kill me, Sue?"_, he laughed.

Susan smiled at this memory. Everything had been so wonderful. The sun, her friends, the pier... And now she had nothing of that. Had her decision to come to this world been wrong finally? Should she just have made her peace and spent her last days with her friends, instead of hanging around alone day by day? Never in her entire life has she regretted anything. When she made a mistake, she accepted it, lived with it and learned from it. This time, though, she wasn't sure. Was she out of place here?

She tried to get rid of this thought at once, but it remained in her mind.

Susan turned to the side and cried.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**Day 28 **

Susan marched down the white corridor.

She had decided not to bow to Flynn's command any longer. She had to go outside. She didn't want to regret her decision to live here. It had to be something amazing out there! Otherwise Flynn wouldn't have spoken of this world in such an enthusiastic way. OK, programs that looked like human beings are indeed interesting, and the technological things such as her disc too, but after a while one got used to it.

She stopped abruptly.

A muscular program with orange circuitry colour stood in front of the elevator. He hadn't been there when she'd arrived down here. Susan took a deep breath and continued walking.

Just as she wanted to pass the guard, he held on to her shoulder roughly.

"Identify yourself, program.", he commanded in a deep, electronic-sounding voice.

"Let go of me.", Susan hissed. Who did this guy think he was?

"Identify yourself.", he repeated, threatening.

"My name is none of your business! Listen, I'm friends with your creator, so..."

Suddenly he took her arm and pinned it behind her back.

"Ouch! That hurts, stupid asshole!"

He didn't even mind her.

"Unidentifiable program on floor 5."

Two other guards came down the hallway. One grabbed her arm, which the other one had held on her back, and this one took the other arm. The last of the three programs positioned himself directly in front of her and repeated the words of the previous one: "Identify yourself."

Susan spit in his face.

"To CLU", he grunted angrily.

Susan grinned. CLU was her friend and as soon as he saw what these idiots were doing with her he'd punish them for treating her badly.

But when they arrived at his office, he just sighed and asked: "What did you want to do, Susan?"

She looked at him in surprise. "I... wanted to go outside."

CLU gave the two who held her a brief nod and they let go of her. "You are well aware that you can't go outside..."

"Why not? Why am I not allowed to have a look at your world?"

"Simply because Flynn doesn't want it."

"But I want it!"

CLU was silent for a second, staring at her. Then he slowly said: "It may be true that Flynn isn't your User, but you should trust his judgement. If he says that it's too dangerous for you out there, it is. Now please forgive me, but I have to attend the purpose I was written for."

**XXXXXXXXXXXX**

**Day 35 **

"Tron!"

Susan flung her arms around his neck.

"Um... did I miss something?", he murmered in a confused voice.

"Quite a few things, my friend!", she laughed.

They sat down on her couch and she told him everything. How these rude programs had treated her and especially how CLU had treated her. She hadn't talked to him since this incident. She couldn't understand how someone could not care about a friend getting hurt. But Tron would back her. At least she thought so.

"Why did you do it?", he asked slowly.

Susan furrowed her brow. "Cause I wanted to get out of here."

"But Flynn doesn't want you to..."

Again she was seething inside. She stood up and paced up and down with arms crossed. "Flynn, Flynn, Flynn! Do programs actually only talk about him?", she said irritated.

Tron sighed. "He surely has a reason for his order. Flynn always knows..."

"I DON'T GIVE A DAMN SHIT ABOUT FLYNN!", she shouted and regretted it immediately. How could she say something like that after he had saved her? No! SHE did it! She saved herself. HE had waited 3 days before activating her. And now he had left her alone.

Tron stood up swiftly. "Don't say that again.", he said calmly but in an undertone of threat, which made Susan even more furious.

"Oh, is that some kind of threat, Alan?!" She bit her tongue and whispered. "Tron..."

He let his tense shoulders fall. Slowly Tron walked over to her and sympathetically said: "You're confused, right?"

"Of course I am confused!" Tears rolled down her cheeks. She sobbed and flopped herself into the couch. "All the while I have the feeling of not belonging here!"

"Yes, you do belong here..."

"And why is everything here crap for me then?", she snarled at him, just to look shocked about herself afterwards and sigh, shaking her head with closed eyes. "I'm so sorry... I'm just... I'm so angry and sad that Kevin didn't show up, not once. He's my best friend after all, you know, he at least could..." Her voice failed her.

Tron cautiously sat down beside her. "It's not your fault. There's always much time passing between his stays on the Grid. Sometimes he even stays away for a whole cycle."

"That doesn't really cheer me up..."

Tron looked away. He didn't know how to treat her her at the moment. This situation was unique. A program without purpose... It had to be frustrating.

"That means, I can't leave this place until he's here and that could even take a cycle, so a year?"

He nodded slowly.

"Terrific..."

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**Day 49 **

Susan lied in her bed.

She wasn't in the mood for anything. It was like the time when she had cancer, which seemed so far away now. Back then she didn't know how to escape her misery. Now it was reverse.

By now she wouldn't even care if one of these rude sentries entered her room and slayed her once for all, if anything, she would appreciate it.

She would have never thought that she would become a person with suicidal ideation. But... was she a person anyway? No. She wasn't a human being anymore, she was a program. A program without assignment, without purpose. She wasn't Susan. She didn't even have an own name. Good for nothing, of no importance. These memories imprinted on her disc didn't belong to her. She was not Susan Gifford.

_"Well, strictly speaking, you haven't experienced those things..." _

CLU had been right.

Susan Gifford had had friends, a home, everything to live for. She herself didn't have anything. The Grid wasn't her home, albeit she was a program. She didn't belong here. Every night Susan had dreamt of the Grid in her hospital room. And now? Even though she didn't belong to the real world either, she wanted to go outside. There she knew the ropes at least. There she knew what the world had to offer. Most probably though, she wouldn't be welcome there anymore, but she didn't care. She simply wanted to get out of here.

However, she couldn't go back. She was trapped. She had come to a decision and now she had to live with it.

Before she fell asleep in tears, she hoped to never wake up again.


	7. 5 EOLC

_**Author's Note: See? I don't do it again ^^ OK guys, this time it won't be as depressing (and maybe boring, I don't know any opinions from others, since nobody reviews... SQUEEE impatience, you hoe!) as the last chap. Pluuuuuus a certain character of Legacy has his appearance here... Maybe you're clever enough to discern of the title who I mean ;) So here it is, enjoy and REVIEW :D**_

_**- END OF LINE -**_

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**/EOLC/**

Susan was woken by a loud noise. It was CLU's voice which resounded through speakers in the corridors: "Attention! Every security program from floor 5 to floor 6. Unidentifiable program, I repeat, unidentifiable program in floor 6!"

Sluggishly she stood up and peeked out of her front door to the corridor. Nothing. Absolutely nobody was there. She shrugged, went inside again and slumped into her bed like a wet sack in order to continue her sleeping cycle. Though, something kept her awake. Some thought, that she had for a second earlier...

Her lids snapped open.

'_Every security program from floor 5..._', he had said.

There really was nobody, which meant that there was nobody at the elevator either...

She stood up at one go and ran out to the corridor. When she reached the elevator she looked around once more and reflected on her plan one more time.

Should she really do that? Flynn had said that it was dangerous out there. But that didn't matter. If something happened to her, it would only free her. She just hoped that something interesting lurked out there.

Susan stepped into the elevator and pressed the 'Level 0'-button.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXX**

The elevator door opened with a hiss. Susan caught her breath.

In front of her gaped a crossroad with three arms. The pavement consisted of black hexagons, along the streets were high buildings, really high buildings. Susan couldn't claim to ever have seen such high buildings. And how they gleamed! On the black walls were several strips and forms that glowed in white and light blue.

Just as Susan wanted to take the first step out of the elevator, CLU's angry voice let her beaming smile fall: "Attention, sentries of TRON City! Program 'Susan Gifford' is at large! Take her to the central office promptly! I repeat, Susan Gifford to the central office promptly!"

There she realized something orange in the street to her right. She didn't dare to breathe. The sentry had some kind of transparent board in his hands, which he now glanced up from, approaching her at a brisk pace.

Her eyes widened as she recognised the picture of herself on the board. There her feet acted on their own. She ran away.

"Halt, program!", he shouted in a deep electronic voice, but Susan barely heard him.

Her legs moved incredibly fast. For a long time she hadn't had the chance to run and now she ran as if she'd never done anything else her entire life.

She turned into a narrow alley to her left and ran straight ahead, then to the right, then left again. She glanced over her shoulder and noticed that the sentry was gone. For the last time she turned into an alley to her left and stood still.

Panting she leaned against the wall. It felt like adrenaline was flowing through her veins, but she knew that she had none of the two. Still out of breath, she peeked around the corner. The sentry was standing in the middle of the street, looking around in confusion. He turned around his own axis once more, stamped his foot and spoke into a device on his arm: "I lost her. She should be in sector 4 though." Then he hurried into the opposite direction.

Susan closed her eyes.

She felt like a prisoner on the run. This wasn't what she had expected of this world. She wanted to have fun, but instead she was hunted by CLU's sentries, not even knowing where she was going to. On top of that, she didn't notice anything spectacular while running away. The empty streets and the buildings looked really cool indeed but she was still not as impressed as she had expected to be. Was this place eventually a disappointment after all?

Sighing she opened her eyes again... and furrowed her brow. The alley she was standing in was illuminated by something in a street at the end of the alley. Curiously, she walked up to the street and looked up. A huge hologram of a billboard, glaring in light blue, hovered in the middle of the street, spunning around, so that everyone could read it's font:

**END OF LINE CLUB **

**Get rezzed **

Susan stared at the hologram.

Amazing. She'd only seen something like that in movies, she couldn't believe that it was existing. But there was something else too. Something about this advertisment fascinated her.

'Get rezzed' Yes, that's it! She would never have thought that there could be a club on the Grid. A club in a computer! So she wasn't the only program which was urgently in need of entertainment. Outside, she, or better said her User Susan, had never been to a club. She liked to be surrounded by people indeed, but she wasn't really the dancing type. She rather went to a bar where she could also eat something. But the heck with it! She finally had the chance to change her state of depression. Would she like it? She didn't know. The only thing he's knew was that this club attracted her more than anything else on her time on the Grid.

Susan looked around and found a little group of laughing programs walking down the street.

"Hey!"

They turned to her.

"Hi...", she said approaching them. Then she remembered something. "Um... Greetings, Programs!"

They darted some confusing looks at one another. Ok, they don't really say that here.

Susan sighed. "Do you guys know the way to the End Of Line Club?"

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

At this sight, Susan's jaw dropped.

The club was chock full and everyone enjoyed themselves by dancing close together and drinking delightfully. The music nearly drowned out every noise. This kind of music had never come across her. Everything sounded so electronic and the beat was so hard, that her whole body vibrated.

Slowly Susan went in, still open-mouthed. The floor glowed whitely, just as many things here. She looked down at herself, recognising that her circuitry colour beamed a bit brighter than usual. This place was gorgeous!

The programs looked really happy. Everyone had a nice time, which Susan wanted too. Just as she wanted to join the dancing people, a thought struck her mind and she stopped dead in her tracks. What was she about to do? She couldn't dance! Nervously she looked around and spotted a large bar at the back side of the club. Perfect! There she would begin. A bit of drinking, a bit of observing and maybe, after a few drinks, she would muster the courage to go to the dance floor.

She wormed her way through the masses and sat down on a stool of the bar. She glanced over to the dance floor and observed the all too human programs.

"What's it to be?", someone pulled her out of her thoughts. Susan looked up at a man with a brown beard and a nice smile.

"Um..." There she realized that she didn't know the answer to that question. In her quarters she had always drunken water, nothing else. At least she called it water, since it actually was, like all foodstuff here, pure energy in different forms.

"Uuum... Whiskey Cola?"

The bartender gave her a questioning look. Susan bit her lip and asked sheepishly: "Which drinks are there?"

The program smiled at her. "New on the Grid?"

"You might say that..."

"Alrighty." He tipped at the counter and suddenly pictures of all kinds of drinks appeared.

Susan was flabbergasted. 'How many things function as touchscreens here, fascinating...', she thought. But now she faced another problem: She had nothing to pay for the drinks!

"Um... I'll take..." What should she say now? That she didn't want to order now? That'd be rude. She wasted this poor program's time, but she couldn't think of an answer.

"The agony of choice, hm?", a soft voice came behind her. She didn't have to turn around since the program leaned next to her at the bar a moment later.

Susan raised her eyebrows in astonishment. Next to her stood a man totally in white. His suit was white, his cicuitry colour, his skin and even his hair. He was only about one inch taller than her and had a very slim figure, which his tight suit showed off to its advantage. Around his eyes was dark blue makeup, what emphasized their colour. They were silver, brighter than any eyes Susan had ever seen before.

She'd never met a man like this.

He smiled at her. "So you don't know which delicious drink to take, my dear?"

Susan, still irritated by his appearance, nodded slightly.

He turned to the bartender. "Mix her my favourite cocktail, Shaddix, and while you're at it, one for me too, please. Thank you..." The program eyed her up. "You don't look like the others." He pointed at her attire.

Susan looked down at herself. "Oh, well..." Why did this program confuse her so much? No, she wouldn't appear like a wallflower now. Self-confidence. She had never been lacking in this, so why now?

She cleared her throat. "I... like to be different."

"I know the feeling..." He grinned.

The bartender poured them the freshly made drinks whose liquid glowed green. Susan marvelled at the masterpiece before drinking and was surprised by the sensational taste. The one opposite her took a sip too.

"So", he said while putting the glas down again. "What is a program that's so different doing in a modest club like the End Of Line?"

Susan laughed briefly. "Modest?"

"How would you describe this ambience? Ostentatious?"

"Hm..." She looked around. "Rather breathtaking."

"Exaggerated?"

"Stylish."

"Electrifying."

"Energetic."

"Different.", he said with a grin.

Susan smirked and looked into his eyes. "Yeah, different..."

Shyly she looked away after a short pause. Normally she could keep eye contact until her interlocutor gave up, she sometimes even stared at strangers just to laugh about the embarrassment in their face when they have to look away, but she couldn't bear such piercing eyes.

"You didn't answer my question.", he stated slightly smiling.

"I'm here for the same reason as the others: to enjoy myself."

"To dance?"

She nearly choked on the drink. The program laughed. This man was was making her nervous. "No... Um, I... I absolutely don't equate dancing with enjoying oneself."

"Why not?"

"I can't dance."

"You can't or you dont want to?"

"I... don't know. Maybe both."

"Due to the lack of good dancing partners?"

"I guess a good partner doesn't ask for a dance, he lets others ask him."

He smirked. "So what if he discovered an extraordinary woman, alone and totally... different than the others, it would be okay if he approached her, or would that make him a bad partner?"

"Depends on what he says..." She grinned as well.

"If he invited her to a drink, she definitely wouldn't say no..."

"Surely not." Susan demonstratively nipped on her glass.

"And if he conducted a light, charming conversation with her, politely asking questions..."

"Namely?"

"Oh, ordinary stuff. For instance... What are you doing here? Why don't you want to dance?..."

"But she knew that he secretly was panting for one certain question..."

"...however, he would be aware of that and wouldn't ask this one question intentionally, in order to not create the impression of impatience. That would of course unsettle her a bit..."

"...but she'd let herself in for the game..."

"... because the game amuses her..."

"...electrifies her..."

"And he would lurk..."

"... waiting for the right moment..."

"... and then out of the blue ask her the question, that both had in mind the entire time: What is your name? And she would answer...?" His grin was tempting, his stare thrilling.

Susan's heart pounded fiercely. "... Susan."

He drank the whole glass with one gulp, put it down on the counter and softly took her hand in his own. "It was a great pleasure to meet you, my dear Susan." He gave her a soft kiss on the hand, took his glass cane, which had leaned against the bar the entire time without Susan noticing, and left. One last time he turned around and smiled at her. Then he winded through the dancing crowd. And suddenly he was gone.

With her mouth open she stared after him. She'd like to follow him but she was too shocked to move.

Who the hell was that?

This extraordinary guy had appeared from nowhere, had completely thrown her out of balance and vanished, just as she wanted to ask for his name.

After she had recovered from the shock, Susan stood up and mixed with the dancing programs. This program had encouraged her. She was so energized after this conversation that she had to let everything out. So she danced to a fare-thee-well, not even caring about her strange dancing style, to a music she never heard before but loved immediately. A few programs looked at her outfit in confusion but most of them didn't seem to care about it, as if she was one of them.

Suddenly Susan felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Susan!", she heard a familiar voice say behind her in a serious tone.

She quickly turned around and faced Tron and two other security programs.

"Tron! What are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to ask you the same question."

Susan's mood plummeted. "I enjoy myself. What does it look like?", she answered briskly, turned away from him and wanted to dance again, but Tron grabbed her arm.

"Now please come with me."

She wrested herself free. "No! I'll stay!"

Tron sighed. "Susan, I have no time for games..."

"And I have no time for you now, so please excuse me." Demonstratively she began to dance again. There Tron's patience snapped. He grabbed her by the arm again, tighter than before, and dragged her along to the exit.

"Hey, stop it!", Susan shouted.

Most programs turned to them.

"You asked for it, Susan, I'm sorry..."

She tried to get free, but Tron was too strong. "Fu... Help!... Stop it!"

Suddenly Tron was stopped by a glass cane which was held to his chest. The music stopped instantly.

"Let her go.", the program Susan had met earlier said calmly. Every other program in the club goggled at them in curiosity.

"Zuse, you have no idea what this is about..."

"And I don't have to know, I presume, but you don't seem to realize that each program in my club is subject to personal protection. You know, I'm always glad to welcome you here, my dear Tron, but this time, I'm afraid, I must ask you to leave. Without her." He smiled.

Tron planted himself in front of him. He was much taller, appearently stronger, nevertheless this program took a stand for her. And he didn't look intimidated at all. No, he boldly grinned at him.

When Tron wanted to counter, the entrance doors flung open and a program rushed in.

"The portal is open!", it declared happily.

Susan gasped. "Kevin..."

**XXXXXXXXXXXXX**

_**Author's Note: Soooo here was my favourite Disney Princess ever! I hope it is OK for you that he will appear more often now... Well, it has to be cause... I'll do it anyway ;) Don't forget to REVIEW :D**_


	8. 6 Reintegration

**_Author's Note: I'm sooo sorry for the late update! Life is quite complicated right now _ But hey I finally graduated (with honours ^^) and my very first film project is in full swing (SQUEEE :DD)!_**

**_ BenRG: That's a very interesting point of view! Never thought about that similarity. But there's one determining difference between Susan and CLU2: Flynn created CLU as a program, nothing else. He does not know the world of the Users, he has a specific purpose on the Grid. Susan, however, created this exact copy of herself as an atempt to stay alive. This copy knows about the world outside of the computer, wherefore she acts like a User would do. She is a program, with the mind of a User. Doesn't have to be a good mixture of course ;) And yes, the possibility that Susan Gifford and her copy would end up having very different personalities exists of course, since this is a whole new world she's born into now, but it's not as dead certain as with Kevin Flynn and CLU.  
But thank you very much for your opinion :D It's interesting to hear other people's thoughts (and of course it's quite flattering that someone actually thinks about my story ;) )_**

**_ Lianne Yoffa: THANK YOU HONEY! Your review really cheered me up and I'm reeeally sorry that my updates come in such a lame pace _ I'll try to not let this happen again :)_**

**_Aaand now... The new chap! ^^ Maybe one little note: In the middle of the second paragraph to its end I listened to '_Recognizer_' from the _TRON: Legacy _Soundtrack_. _It's not thaat necessary that you do that too, but I kinda realised that it really emphasizes the emotions and atmosphere in this scene. It might helps you to get more into this (*ahem* awesome) story ;) ENJOY, PROGRAMS!_**

**_END OF LINE_**

* * *

**/Reintegration/**

When she opened the door to her apartment, Susan became giddy. Her attempt to take a deep breath failed.  
Flynn stood up from her couch smiling widely. "Susan...", he said and opened his arms.  
After a moment of silence, Susan dashed towards him and slapped his face hard. Flynn was puzzled, outright shocked. She could no longer keep back her tears and started crying. She held fast onto him and cried into his jacket.  
They maintained the position very long, hugging each other.  
What was going on with his friend? Flynn was perplexed. She had been so happy when they split up the day before. Then it hit him: he hadn't told her about the time lag.  
He now also hugged Susan tightly and whispered: "I'm sorry..."  
"What the hell was going on with you? Why did you leave me alone for 50 days?", she sniffed, slightly pushing him awaay.  
"Damn, I haven't told you about it... You know, in here, time passes much more quickly than outside. In fact, these 50 days you are talking about were only 24 hours for me! I am so sorry..."  
Susan looked at him, stunned. "Oh...", she breathed. Processing what he had just explained, she shouted: "OH!", and hugged him once more.  
"I'm so sorry", he repeated.  
"No, I am sorry."  
He laughed. "Oh, the slap wasn't so bad."  
She remained serious. "No, that's not what I meat, you did deserve that for your obliviousness. I meant I'm sorry for making it..."  
"Making what?"  
"The copy." She let go of him and walked up and down. "Kev, I..." Again, teardrops rolled down her cheeks. "I don't belong here..."  
Flynn frowned. "What are you talking about?"  
Susan sighed. "During these 50 days I noticed that a program should under no circumstances have any memory of another world, a world that I like better, a world that has so much more to offer... Yes, admittedly, I haven't seen much yet and that club was unique, but I..." her voice failed her. Sobbing, she blubbered out: "I miss my old life!"  
Flynn couldn't believe it. It had happened. Just like he'd predicted. He'd said that she would be trapped in here. May it have been a mistake to rescue her after all? No! It hasn't. She was alive, and that was all that matteredü.  
He hugged her once again. "Susan, that..."  
"No, I'm not Susan! I'm just a cheap copy of her!", she cried.  
"That's nonsense, man!" Tears now almost welled in his eyes. To see his friend in such a depression, an identity crisis, almost broke his heart. He slowly pushed himself away from her to be able to look into her eyes and lie his hands onto her face. "Our actions, our memories make us what we are, not blood. You ARE Susan Gifford, my best friend..."  
Susan smiled slightly. That is what she had told him the other day, but she wasn't so sure about it anymore. Seeing her friend support her, even if she was just a copy, cheered her up a bit.  
A bit calmer, but still agitated, she leaned against him and whispered: "This still isn't my world..."  
Flynn laughed silently. "Then you haven't seen much."

* * *

Susan stood in the elevator.  
Flynn had ended her curfew and organised a program that would show her the Grid. He himself would work on his creation with CLU in the meantime, since it was this program's purpose to create the perfect system.  
Susan wasn't sure if she actually wanted this tour. She knew that Flynn would leave her again, the next time for an even  
longer time. If he spent a week outside, it would last a whole cycle, so a year, to see him again. She tried to forget the thought of deleting herself, but it was still there.  
When a little 'BLUM' signified that she'd arrived at Level 0, Susan sighed. She already felt sorry for the program that wanted to show her everything. Flynn had told her - with the notion of surprise in his voice - that it had volunteered. She was positive that it would face her entirely enthusiastic and would be even more disappointed, when Susan turned out to be totally uninterested and unimpressed.  
Now the moment has come. With closed expression she exited the elevator... and froze.  
A couple of yards away stood the white figure from the club and grinned at her.  
Susan hadn't expected that. How had Tron called him again? Zuse. That was it.  
His name was Zuse. He was the owner of the End Of Line Club. Being a club owner, one would expect he would have a lot of business to do. So why did he waste his time with her now?  
She approached him timidly.  
"He-Hello...", Susan mumbled.  
"Nice to see you again, my dear."  
She swallowed and looked to the floor.  
"Hm..." Zuse looked her over. "What's the matter? You are so secretive, little miss. You have just been so much more communicative!"  
She couldn't look at him. She felt so ashamed of what happened in the club, the loud quarrel with Tron.  
"I'm sorry that I ruined the mood in your club..."  
Zuse laughed softly. "Oh, I beg you! You ruined nothing whatsoever! Quite on the contrary, it only turned completely amusing at that point."  
Susan smiled and looked at him. "So..." She slightly fidgeted around. "You were the program that volunteered to guide me..."  
"That is what I am indeed."  
"Why did you do that?"  
He smirked. "If one was to describe me with a single word, it most probably would be... curious."  
Susan frowned and smiled shyly. "So you are doing this out of curiosity?"  
Zuse nodded. "My interest was already drawn upon you at our nice little conversation at the bar, but it was immensely enhanced when Tron tried to carry you away. Not many dare to resist the strong watcher of the system."  
Susan smirked. "Well, you did too."  
"How did you say it, dearest, I am... different." It felt like his glowing eyes would pierce her. But she liked it. She liked HIM.  
"On another note...", he added after a short break. "... I was really impressed when I heard that you are acquainted with the creator himself and even are in a friendly relationship with him." He raised his eyebrows and looked at her through narrow eyes. "How come that is the case, if you claim being new on the Grid, I wonder."  
Susan's expression turned sad. She immediatley had to think of the last 50 days and how unhappy she had been here.  
Zuse seemed to recognise that and instantly changed the topic. "Well then. We are here for specific reason. Shall we start making our way around here, love?  
He grinned widely and Susan also slightly smiled.  
Just the way she imagined it. Enthusiastic. She already felt guilty for this program, but it would get even worse, if he put on an expression of disappointment. However, she couldn't play any excitement. He surely would recognise if she just acted as if she liked the Grid.  
Nonetheless, she followed him now to a big junction not far from the elevator. If she didn't like the tour, then at least her company.  
Suddenly they stopped.  
"What's the matter?", Susan asked frowning.  
"We're here."  
"Where?"  
"At the landing field."  
"Landing field for w-"  
All of a sudden, wind blew from above. Susan looked up and held her hand in front of her face, protecting her eyes, because something shone brightly upon her. A kind of blue glowing airship landed directly beside them.  
It was open on the side facing them. Sentry programs stood in it and waited.  
"For our ride.", Zuse shouted over the noise and ambled to the vehicle. Susan hesitated at first, but decided to run after him and they both entered the airship.  
She thought that the open side would close behind them, but it didn't. Just some kind of shimmering light-wall was moved upon it. The airship started to vibrate and slowly took off.  
Susan clung to Zuse's arm. She has totally forgotten about her fear of heights and a big hole in the vehicle really did not contribute to the wellbeing.  
Zuse looked at the hands of his companion, which buried deeper and deeper into his arm and raised his eyebrows in surprise.  
"Do not worry.", he said calmingly and Susan looked him in his bright eyes with a look full of fear. "Nothing can happen to you, you are completely safe." Susan nodded slightly, but she didn't believe him. She panicked and right now she couldn't care less if he recognized that. She actually wanted back down instantly, but realized that that wasn't possible anymore. It was one thing to appear as a coward, but a completely different thing to spoil the fun of everyone around her. So she said nothing, closed her eyes and kept holding on to Zuse.  
The airship flew higher and higher. Susan hoped devoutly that they would land again soon, but she was sure that this wouldn't happen. She didn't even have the courage to open her eyes. Obviously, she was a little bit curious about what she could see, but her fear of falling spoiled everything.  
She opened her eyes, just a tiny little bit, and looked to the floor. But she instantly pressed the lids back together as she realized that the floor was transparent and that they were already really high. She felt that they didn't fly vertical anymore, but horizontal.  
"Susan?", she heard Zuse beside her.  
"Mhm?", she shakingly brought out.  
"Look...", he whispered in her ear.  
Susan slowly opened her eyes and looked at him. He smiled and pointed at the open side in front of them with a nod.  
She swallowed. But she did it.  
Slowly, very slowly, she turned her head towards the direction he pointed to, and froze.  
Her muscles relaxed. She released Zuse and approached the open side with mouth agape. She couldn't believe it.  
Outside were tremendous glowing buildings, and, beyond that, a vast landscape made of stone and a huge, shimmering lake. Airships, as theirs, flew around everywhere but not only blue ones. No, everything was glowing colourfully! Below them, various coloured vehicles were driving around and programs strolled through the brightly lit streets. Everything was so lively! In the far distance, a bright light shone upon everything, brighter than anything here. It was beautiful. This world was beautiful! Tears were running down Susan's cheeks. She did not expect anything like this! She always assumed the Grid a prison. And now? It was the most beautiful place she's ever seen...  
"Breathtaking, isn't it?", Zuse whispered beside her.  
"It's unbelievable...", she breathed, and laughed while she was crying. The first honest laugh since 50 days.

* * *

After they had landed, the airship flew off again and the two of them gazed after it.  
Susan was still thrilled to bits. How could she have ever doubted that Flynn would create an amazing world? She smiled while looking at the small lights on the sky that appeared to be airships.  
Zuse sighed. "Well then..."  
Susan's smile faded. "You won't leave now, will you?"  
"No, no. WE have to leave. We are already quite late."  
"Where are we going? Not back again, do we? I still have to see so much!"  
Zuse laughed. "No, we are not going back. Not yet. Before that we have something differently scheduled and I am sure that you will like it."  
Suddenly thunder resounded. Susan looked up and right at that moment her face got moistened with raindrops.  
Susan laughed. "Awesome!"  
She looked at Zuse. Calmly he turned his cane and instantly an umbrella appeared at its top with a fizz.  
'Man!', Susan thought.  
"Get under my umbrella before you'll get soaking wet, my dear."  
Susan beamed at him and literally jumped towards him.  
She linked arms with Zuse and they started to walk.  
"So, where are we going?", she asked.  
Earlier, when she hadn't known how great the Grid was, she would have been sceptical if he told her she would certainly like it.  
But now she was really excited.  
"You'll see..." Zuse smirked. Susan could see that he was happy about her liking his home.  
"Oh, come on! At least a little hint!", she pouted playfully. He laughed and shook his head.  
"Oh no, you will surely be able to wait a little while!" He looked into her eyes. "Believe me, it's worth it..."

* * *

The arena was filled with programs. Hundreds, maybe thousands were romping about there.  
Susan was stoked.  
"Now that's a lot of them!", she said bewildered as she looked upon the crowd from a platform at the very top of the stadium. She felt really important as Zuse and her were previously guided to this lounge.  
Now she joyfully could overlook everything even though she had no idea what was going on here.  
"Yes, pretty much every program tries to save up the necessary ressources for this.", Zuse said and looked satisfied upon the other programs below.  
Susan mischievously looked at him. "Aaaaaaaand... what exactly is 'this'?"  
Zuse grinned without looking at her. "You just cannot wait, can you?"  
"No, I can't!", she laughed.  
"Now..." Suddenly almost all of the lights in the arena went off, the remaining ones focused on the empty area in the middle, and everyone in the arena began to cheer. Susan looked downward. Flying platforms, which looked like boxes, suddenly arose from the centre, a program in each of them. "... You don't have to wait much longer..."  
"Zuse?" Susan now was so excited, that she could not bear it. "What is that?"  
"Those are the games, my dear."  
"What kind of games?"  
Zuse looked at hear and grinned. "Disc Wars."  
The masses started cheering: "DISC WARS! DISC WARS! DISC WARS!"  
And Susan quietly  
"_All combatants, prepare for disc wars._", a nice female voice pronounced... and then it began.  
The programs in the boxes took their identity discs from their backs and threw it harshly in the direction of their opponent. Most of them dodged and the disc flew into the wall, bouncing off like a bouncing ball, flew right back into the hand of its owner and the battle continued.  
Susan was speechless.  
She had never thought that one would be able to do more with a disc than saving information. These programs down there were using it as a weapon!  
Unbelievable...  
Suddenly the player Susan payed her attention to started running to his opponent, reacted mindblowingly fast as his enemy threw his disc at him and jumped onto him.  
The opponent fell to the floor and the program held his disc against his throat.  
"_Combatant 3, victory_", the voice announced.  
"YEEEEEEAAAH!", Susan cheered toghether with most of the other spectators.  
The winner went back to his own box and the one of the defeated slowly sank back to the floor where the ground opened and swallowed it.  
The box of the victor swapped places due to another victory in the meantime.  
Now, the two winners fought against each other.  
It got more and more thrilling as time went by as the participants were declining in number but therefore likely to be better.  
Susan let out an excited "WOW" here and there as well as sometimes a "Yes, go get him!" or a "Gooooooo! YEEEES!".  
She kept clinging onto the railing and leaned far over it.  
Zuse kept having an eye on her. It amused him seeing her bloom at these games.  
Earlier, as he collected her, she sounded somewhat bummed and depressed. But now, well. She cheered louder than he ever heard a female program cheer before.  
As the final round has been announced, she screeched: "LET HIM HAVE IT, DAMN IT, LET HIM HAVE IIIIT!"  
Zuse snorted with laughter. Susan looked at him puzzled, but then started to understand and sheepishly looked away. "Sorry..."  
"It's alright, dear, it's alright!", he laughed. "I'm glad you're so thrilled."  
Susan grinned and focussed back on the games.  
This time it took longer, but finally, the player, which Susan found the most likeable, won. So she screamed out of sheer enthusiasm as he was celebrated.  
Amidst the cheering she felt a hand on her shoulder.  
"Let us go. So we have a little bit more time to talk, yes?," she heard Zuse's soft voice whisper in her ear.  
"Alright!," she gasped and they left the lounge.

* * *

Susan was completely relaxed now. The ever lasting excitement had made way for an inner ease and she smiled lightly. She was happy. Really happy! She would never have dreamt of something like that.  
"It's so beautiful here...", she breathed.  
"Mhm..." Zuse nodded slightly while marveling at the many glaring lights of the city, obviously deep in thoughts.  
Susan laughed and he looked at her frowningly. "What is the matter?"  
"It's just..." She sighed. "I'm so happy..."  
Zuse smiled softly. "I'm glad you are."  
A moment of silence followed but since both of them were very calm and relaxed, it did not change the mood. It was quite pleasant actually.  
After a while, Susan quietly said: "Thank you... for everything.", and looked into Zuse's eyes in doing so.  
"It was my pleasure, in all honesty." He fell silent for a moment, then asked: "Susan? I'm still curious about where you know Flynn from..."  
Susan hesitated for a moment, but she was so relaxed, happy and thankful now that she decided to open up to him. "You know... When I said that I'm different, I actually meant it. I am a program but... not a 'common' one."  
Zuse listened attentively. This program became more and more interesting for him.  
"Flynn has not written me."  
He raised his eyebrows in surprise, did not interrupt her however.  
"I actually wasn't written in the proper sense at all. Flynn had a friend once. Her name was... Susan. Susan Gifford. This Susan had an illness, cancer."  
"She was affected by some virus?"  
"No, cancer is more like if certain data of your own system turns into a virus and destroys you from within."  
He grimaced. "Sounds horrible. Where do you know that from?"  
"Well, when Susan got to know about that, she came to a resolution. Flynn had told her about the Grid and how amazing it was. So, without his permission, she entered the system and created an exact copy of herself. Flynn himself only had to activate this program..."  
Zuse was speechless. After half an eternity he asked: "You... you are the copy of a User?"  
Susan nodded.  
"Well, THAT is something really impressing!", he laughed. "It has to be unbelievable!"  
"To be honest it's not as cool as you think." She looked at him unsmiling. "I have memories of a User imprinted on my disc. They don't belong to me. Flynn had let me believe that the Grid wasn't my world, an unbearable place, for 50 days. I thought, it wouldn't offer enough, you know?"  
"Hm..." Zuse looked down and thought about it for a moment. "Yes, yes I know what you mean..."  
"Man, I really had the intention to delete myself! Just because I thought, it was a mistake to create a copy of myself!" She bit her tongue. "It was a mistake of Susan to create a copy of herself..."  
This time the silence was unpleasant.  
Now, despite her will, Susan had to cry a bit.  
"Shit...", she whispered and whiped the tears off of her cheeks.  
"Look at me.", Zuse said after what seemed like an eternity. She did as she was told. "Which name did you name me at our first encounter?"  
Hesitantly she answered. "Susan."  
"You have been so confident in this conversation. Why do you think you are not Susan? Has she been different than you are?"  
She thought about that for a moment.  
She didn't know the answer to that question. Actually the memories in her disc felt like hers, but she could not get rid of this thought that they weren't hers. If Susan, the real Susan, was still alive she wouldn't want that anyone else had these memories. However... she was not alive. She was dead. And the copy... was a part of herself. It was HER. The User Susan Gifford was dead, though the program Susan Gifford lived. She was more Susan now than she had been the last months in hospital. She had inherited her mind, the knowledge of another world and therefore nobody could deny it. She was not of flesh and blood, but what made Susan to what she was anyway?  
"Actions and memories..."

* * *

Cycle after cycle passed and Susan settled in fabulously. She had learned, that the timespans between Flynn's visits weren't so long after all. After she got used to the fact, that there is no age limit here, she got used to seeing the time pass faster and she could approach everything in a very calm matter.  
Every time Flynn came, he brought her little dice which turned out to be music files. She just would need to transfer them onto her disc, put that into the input in her appartment and her home would be delighted with the sounds of Queen, CCR and many more. He also told her in a very detailed manner what was going on outside, so she would keep up to date with this world too.  
She spent lots of time in the End Of Line club and enjoyed every second of it. Susan never had to pay for her drinks if she was with Zuse, but he was not the only one buying things for her.  
Since she accepted herself as a part of the Grid, and as Susan Gifford, she was also accepted by the other programs.  
Her designing herself a new outfit may have played a part in this too: A black suit, like many programs wore, with white and blue circuitry colour. Under her neckline was a small triangle pointing down, which became some kind of her circuitry sign just as Tron had his little squares. The suit was tight, but showed enough skin for her to feel really pretty. But instead of designing something really beautiful to wear, maybe a dress, she designed it in a way, that would make it easy for her to move in it.  
Because the only place where she spent even more time than in the End Of Line club was Tron's gym, where he taught her how to drive a light cycle - the first time she was allowed to drive one, she unintendedly destroyed it by crashing into her own light ribbon - as well as disc fighting. And she loved both! Even though the fighting was even more relevant to Susan's interests.  
She trained every day, multiple hours.  
It had taken quite a long time before she even had the right starting position, but since she had much time here anyway, she did not mind taking more time to learn something.  
She fully opened up in this sport. Outside, she desperately wanted to learn Karate and stuff, but this was much better.  
She had visited the games for a couple of times now and every time she was excited about how agile those fighting programs were.  
But there wasn't only disc fighting available to watch in the Game Arena.  
Other games that Flynn told her about also took place here, but nothing beat disc fighting in her eyes.  
Light cycle races weren't hosted there, though.  
Instead, there was an own light cycle arena, and as Flynn showed her the the gaming field for the first time, Susan was thrilled to bits.  
But all games had one in common: Tron led the rankings.  
He was the champion in any sport on the grid and Susan understood why.  
During the first time watching light cycle races, she couldn't believe her eyes.  
Tron rode so quickly and agile that he could take down his opponents, who were from all over the Grid, not only Tron City, in only a couple of minutes. He didn't delete them, of course. He just let them fall off their vehicles by leading them into the white light ribbon of his bike, as happened to Susan back then.

_"Tron! How are you doing that, man? It's unbelievable!", she greeted him after the game.  
He laughed.  
"Lots of training. Being a security program, I have got some skills to begin with, too."  
"I want to be able to do that."  
"You will be, definitely."_

She figured out, among other things due to her training, that nobody could ever become as good as Tron was, especially not her.  
She tried it anyway and really improved more and more.  
Sometimes she helped Tron with incidents, in which he had to act as a sentry.

_She was so proud, as she chased two cunning programs, which seperated while running.  
"You're taking this one!", Tron ordered her and before she even could protest, he was already gone.  
"Oh well..."  
She ran as fast as she could, but she couldn't reduce the distance to the program.  
She had to think of something else.  
A light cycle would be of no purpose here, the streets of this sector were too narrow.  
But the disc surely could help her.  
While running she took it from her back and looked around.  
Perfect! Exactly in front of them was one of the many system undocking switches, which she fixated with her eyes.  
She threw her vibrating disc at it.  
Suddenly an orange light wall spawned in front of the running program and he braked quickly.  
As he tried to turn around to see if the sentry program was still close to him, he got kicked in the face and fell to the floor.  
Susan stood over him, breathing heavily.  
"Program, you are a potential risk for the Grid. You will be escorted to the central office in order to scan your disc. After that, system administrator CLU will decide over your further progress. Understood?", Susan said threateningly and tried to hide her heavy breathing with force.  
Tron arrived instantly after with the other program and praised her to the skies.  
"The born security program!", he declared laughingly._


	9. 7 New Algorithm

**_Author's Note: Heya ^^ Here's the new chap and i have to add something: i didn't only make use of elements of _****TRON****_ and _****TRON: Legacy****_, but also, as you certainly will notice, of _****TRON: Uprising****_, _****TRON: Evolution****_ and _****TRON: Betrayal****_ (wow so many _****TRONs****_ in one sentence YAAY :D)_**

**_Now enjoy and don't forget to REVIEW ^^_**

**_END OF LINE_**

* * *

**/New Algorithm/**

Susan was excited.  
50 Cycles had passed since she came to the Grid. She didn't want to establish a reputation like Tron, she wanted to try something out though: Light cycle races.  
She had waited a long time until Tron gave her his OK, since she set a high value on his opinion and if he said, she wasn't ready yet, she would wait. And she did. Finally, after cycles of annoying him by asking more and more frequently if she was ready to attend the races, he gave in.  
"You're damn good, Susan, and I trust you...", he had said.  
Now she sat there with 5 other programs in some kind of preparing room under the Light Cycle Grid. They heared the cheering and stamping of the crowd above them. It made Susan's stomach turn. What if she would have problems right at starting the machine? What if she made a fool of herself right away?  
Susan stood up and nervously paced up and down. The other programs didn't look as jittery as she did.  
They just sat there, had a chat and laughed with their light battons in their hands. Susan remembered Tron showing her that this batton wasn't only there to create light cycles. It also let light jets emerge and even umbrellas. It was some kind of an allround tool.  
She looked down at her own batton. It gleamed whitely. Some of the others here had blue and green circuitry colours. The only one that also had white circuitry colour, and an entirely white outfit, sat quietly in one corner of the room. Only the visor of its helmet, that it already wore, contrary to the other programs in the room, was black. Susan presumed that he was from Argon City. She heard that one of those programs was from Gallium and one from Argon, but she did not know which of those. It was a rumour, that the drivers from Argon where one of the best, whereas those from Gallium shouldn't be a big problem in a race, so it'd be easier if she knew who was a strong opponent and who wasn't. The white one, with his calmness and dissociation from the others, seemed like if he could become a strong one.  
Suddenly the masses above them fell silent and the programs in the room looked up. A loud voice announced the beginning of the games. Susan and the others lined up on a platform that slowly rose.  
"Nervous?", a female program with silver hair next to her asked.  
"A bit...", Susan answered shakily.  
"Don't worry," She looked at her. "I won't delete you, just throw you from your bike."  
She gave her a mischievous grin. Susan just angrily looked straightforward.  
Above them it became brighter and then the numerous stands full off cheering programs appeared around them.  
Susan's heart sank to her boots.  
She swallowed.  
It had never looked like that amount of programs, when she herself had been one of the spectators.  
She looked at her luminous batton.  
She herself has designed this light cycle. It looked a bit different than the others, with some jags on the back cover that looked like a dragon's comb, and the circuitry sign, that was also under her neckline, on the wheels.  
"_All combatants, prepare for light cycle race_", the nice female voice pulled her out of her thoughts.  
Above them beamed a big rotating number.  
"_5_"  
The six programs switched to a racing position.  
"_4_"  
They clutched their battons with one hand.  
"_3_"  
They prepared mentally.  
"_2_"  
Susan was on the far left of the row and shortly looked to the other programs. The program in white looked into her direction. Immediately she looked straightforward again.  
"_1_"  
'_You're damn good, Susan, and I trust you..._'  
*_BEEP_*  
For Susan everything became slow. Her heart pounded strongly in her chest and she breathed heavily. While running, Susan jumped up, seperated the two parts of her batton, felt them snap into place on each side and drove off extremely fast.  
The programs scattered on the field. Susan observed each of them for a moment. She instantly recognised this bragging girl from earlier on her light cycle. Yes, she would be the first Susan would be going to take out.  
She slowly navigated towards her and activated the white light ribbon behind her. Now, she drove directly behind her, closely to her green light ribbon. She didn't even notice her. Perfect! She could just accelerate, cut in on her in a narrow curve and she would directly drive into the ribbon. She smirked. Susan stepped on the gas and dashed forwards.  
Suddenly she braked, sharply breathed in and quickly turned her bike to the left.  
"AAAARG!", the woman shrieked, when she crashed into the ribbon of the white program, which suddenly had come out of nowhere and cut in on her.  
"_Combatant 2, defeat._"  
Susan grazed the white light ribbon of her opponent, emitting sparks. She turned her light cycle more to the left in order to get into safety since this program had certainly seen her.  
She looked behind her. The white program didn't follow her, just continued driving straightforward.  
"Damn it!", she gasped. This program had taken her the victory over this silly cow! It was really good though. None of both, neither the annoying green one nor Susan, had noticed him approaching.  
Whatever, she had to concentrate now.  
In front of her she spotted a ramp that in a twist guided down to a lower level. She reached it and drove downwards. There she saw an other program dashing past her.  
'Well, looks like I am going to get this one now...'  
She accelerated and rode towards a little bridging, under which the program seemed to plan to go through. It had already seen Susan and she could imagine what it would try: He slowed his pace so Susan would cross the bridge faster than he would go through it, so he could surprise her from below.  
Susan grinned. For now, she would let him in the belief that his plan would work. So she rushed to the bridging. As she reached it, the guy was not quite at the underpass yet, and Susan used this situation to her advantage. Instead of going completely over the briding, she dodged to the right, landed with a thump on the floor and blocked the exit of the tunnel which her opponnent just entered with her light ribbon. He screamed and rode directly into her light ribbon.  
"_Combatant 5, Defeat_"  
The crowd cheered. Susan laughed.  
"Yes!"  
There was already the next guy. Above her drove a programme with a blue circuitry colour. Susan looked around quickly. In front of her, there was a ramp for changing levels. Her mind instantly started to work on an attack plan and she grinned. She rode directly towards the ramp, as the other program did and accelerated fully. She flew high above the other programme, turned around and barely saw how the programme rode screechingly into her light ribbon.  
"_Combatant 3 defeat_"  
Susan smiled and raised her hand thriumphantly. The spectators cheered.  
She looked around. No programme was close to her, but a little bit farther in front she saw the other survivors. The white one was a level over his opponent. Both were riding fast towards a spiral, which allowed to change levels. As they reached it and crossed the big arrows on it, one could hear an alternating sequence of "BLUM"-sounds, becoming higher and higher. In the middle they finally came face to face. Susan knew the thought of both: They would drive directly towards each other and dodge in the last possible moment, so the other one would crash into the light ribbon. Susan would have been lucky if both were defeated. She would have won then.  
From a distance, she watched the show. The lower rode towards the white one with a battle cry, but he did not dodge. Susan took a deep breath. The Blue one suddenly dodged out of fear, but the withe one made a hard 180° turn and the opponent had nowhere to go. With a last cry, he directly crashed into the white light ribbon and was sent flying over it.  
"_Combatant 4, defeat_"  
Susan kept riding ahead with mouth agape. How could the program make such a tight turn? If she did something like that, she would have most likely hit her own light ribbon, but this guy completed the bend with such elegance that he reached the higher level using the spiral again. Unbelievable!  
Now Susan and the white guy were the only ones remaining. A cold shower was running over her back, but she swallowed her fear. She had to think of a good plan to beat him.  
In the distance she watched him make a big turn and he was already behind her, relatively far away, but the gap was closing. Susan planned quickly. She discovered an opening towards the lower level in front of her. She accelerated and rushed to it. Behind her, she heard her opponent coming closer and closer. She reached the opening, drew in a breath and jumped down to the lower level with her bike. She quickly looked behind herself and witnessed the level opening  
closing directly in front of the white one, which made him need to dodge quickly.  
Now he rode above her, on the left side. Susan looked up to him and discovered, that he was observing her, too. Slowly, he turned his head back forward, and she did the same. Farther away, she saw a ramp which led above.  
"Alright, Susan, your break is over...", she silently said to herself and drove up. On the upper level, she instantly looked around and saw ... nothing. Her opponent was nowhere close. Where was he? Then she discovered him. He was really far away, but riding directly towards her.  
Susan summoned up all her courage. 'Whatever you want, whitey...' She was also racing directly towards him.  
Around him she heard the crowd getting lowder, as was her heart. They came closer and closer. She rode as quickly as she could, she squeezed the maximum out of her bike, the maximum of what it could do.  
He was just a couple metres away from her. Susan's heart stopped. Suddenly he did something, she would have counted with: He stood up and jumped and his light cycle turned into the batton again.  
'What?!' Susan dodged the remaining light ribbon instantly...and drove directly into the new white lighttrail.  
She was sent flying high and hit the ground hard. She groaned in pain.  
"_Combatant 6 Victory_"  
The cheering turned immense. Susan opened her eyes and started to rise. In the distance she saw the white guy riding an elegant round, so everyone could catch a look at him. She looked at the point where she rode into his light ribbon. As she could see in the shape of the slowly fading ribbon, he instantly had rebuilt his light cycle after he had jumped into the air and enclosed her due to the tight turn he made.  
This guy really deserved to win. He was unbelievable, he was...  
Susan saw many tiny cubes on the place of her impact. He was an asshole! It took forever to completely design her light cycle and he destroyed it. Her beautiful light cycle!  
A tear was running down her cheek. Then, she heard the sound of a light cycle closing in. She looked up and saw the white one, who braked in front of her and stopped. He stretched his hand out to her. Did he think she would let him lead her out despite his destroying her entire work, her pride just now? Outraged, she slapped his hand away, got up and walked towards the exit.

* * *

"You were awesome, Sue!", Flynn shouted when he came towards her.  
"Shut it, Kevin...", she hissed.  
She stomped down the corridor to the exit of the light cycle arena. Susan was still angry and sad, even though her friend had come to the Grid only for her, only to see her first race. Now he hurried along beside her.  
"Hey, you're the runner-up! That's incredible for your first race!"  
"My light cycle is all fucked up though!", she spitted at him.  
Shocked he looked at her.  
Susan took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I just threw myself into this bike..." She looked to the ground and asked, still quite angry: "Who was that douchebag? I want names!"  
Flynn opened his mouth, but CLU's loud voice interrupted him.  
"Flynn!"  
They turned around. "CLU! What's the matter?"  
CLU hurried to them. "Flynn, there's something you gotta see."  
"What?"  
"I don't know exactly, but there's something big going on at the Sea of Simulation..."  
Susan and Flynn irritetedly looked at eachother and hastened off,

* * *

"Do you see, what I see?"  
Susan and CLU stood outside the water, which a girl slowly climbed from. Flynn was helping her.  
"Yes... What's that?", Susan asked quietly.  
CLU shook his head. "I... I don't know. Normally programs come out of the Sea of Simulation when Flynn activates them from outside. But... he's here now... And he looks so confused himself..."  
Both watched Flynn and this program coming out of the water, approaching them.  
CLU took a deep breath and clothed his face with smiles. "Greetings, pro-"  
"She's not a normal program, CLU. I haven't written her.", Flynn interrupted him.  
Susan frowned.  
With a quiet, shy voice the girl piped up: "My name is Ophelia..."  
Flynn laughed. "She herself gave her this name! Nobody has written her. She emerged without any help. She's an isomorphic algorithm... A whole new species..."  
Susan was speechless.  
She stared at Flynn first and then at the girl, that sheepishly looked to the ground. Then Susan began to smile and lifted the chin of the girl up, so that she looked up with big curious eyes.  
"Welcome to the Grid, Ophelia...", Susan whispered.

* * *

At the bar Susan nipped on her drink deep in thoughts.  
Everything had happened so quickly. After Ophelia was brought into the central office, in order to rest for now, they had explained the situation to Tron. He had been as stunned as the others. Flynn hadn't written this program... The Grid created it on its own, she even chose her own name.  
Susan was still totally confused. She had come at the End Of Line Club to unwind. At the central office, Flynn and her had gone over Ophelia's root code, which had made those two speechless. It was unbelievably complex! And then also the others...  
She needed a break from that.  
However, she could not really relax. What was going on here? Did the Grid recently decide to bring his own programs into being?  
"Well, there's someone crabby, hm?"  
"Hey Zuse.", Susan murmured without looking up.  
He sat down next to her. "Why aren't you dancing, dear? Do you feel aggrieved somehow?"  
She shook her head. No, she was not in a bad mood, just... unbelievably confused.  
"Does it have something to do with the race today?", he asked cautiously.  
Susan growled, smiled though. "You've seen it?"  
"Unfortunately not. There was so much club business I had to pay attention at, you understand?" He sighed. "But, you know, people are talking. Being second in a race isn't bad, it's extremely good actually! I believe, there is noone being as good at the first go as you since Tron!"  
Susan laughed. "It's okay, Zuse. I'm not upset about that or something. It's just..." She faltered. "Never mind, let's talk about an other topic."  
"Of course! I wanted to ask you something anyway."  
He came a bit closer. Obviously he didn't want any other program to listen to their conversation. "I have been told that something had happened. Something, that apparently roiled you and CLU." His gaze was intense and serious. "The Grid bugs didn't become worse, did they?"  
Susan smiled soothingly. "No, everything is in best order."  
He gazed her through narrow eyes. "Then I would like to know why Flynn ordered Tron to leave the sector he should protect this cycle, just to talk to him."  
Susan bit her tongue.  
Could she tell him? Zuse was a good friend, though she knew that he also was a great gossiper and liked to spread rumours. She couldn't fully trust him. On the other hand, Flynn did not tell her to keep it to herself. Besides, something like that wouldn't remain secret for long anyway.  
"All right.", she whispered and looked around. After all, she did not feel comfortable discussing this in a full club, in front of all these programs. "Can we go somewhere to talk in private?"  
Zuse seemed surprised. "Yes, of course... Is it really that secret?"  
"Well, I'm not sure... It's not really a secret, but... I'd be uncomfortable with talking about something of such importance in front of all those people."  
"Of such importance...", he repeated whisperingly and bit his bottom lip. He loved important and secret news. "Follow me."  
They wound through the dancing programs - Susan noticed, it was way easier for Zuse to do that - and came to a door next to the club entrance. On a lightly flashing keypad he typed in a combination of numbers and the door opened.  
He took a step back with a slight bow. "Go ahead, please.", he politely said.  
"Thank you...", Susan laughed and stepped in.  
A dark corridor with only one thick strip of blue light on the steps guided downward to another door.  
Susan hesitated, but Zuse pushed her forward lightly. "Come on, precious, I'm already so excited..."  
She laughed and went downstairs, waited for Zuse to open this door too.  
When she entered the room behind it, Susan said "Wow" in amazement.  
It was very bright here. The floor as well as the walls and ceiling of the big room beamed whitely. On the left side there were several bookshelves, some directly at the wall, some standing amidst the room, so that it looked like a little private library. On the right hand side was a dresser, a big mirror and a couch and on the opposite side of the room was another door, which stood ajar, whereby Susan could spot a huge bed.  
"Now..." Zuse put a hand on Susan's back and guided her to the couch.  
As she sat down, she asked: "You have your apartment beneath the club?"  
He nodded and also sat down rapidly.  
"What sort of books are those?"  
"Oh, different files that Flynn uploaded for me once, stories from the world of the Users and other stuff..." He talked so quickly, that she barely could understand. Then he widely smiled at her. "Now don't stall me for so long! I'm already totally fidgety!"  
Susan laughed shortly, became serious afterwards though. "Okay... Well, Flynn, CLU and I drove to the Sea of Simulation after the race. There we found a program that just came out of the water."  
"Then Flynn could not have activated it since he was here all the time."  
"Neither did he activate her nor... write her."  
Zuse frowned. "Then who...?"  
"That's the point... Nobody! Nobody has written her! She, Ophelia, she even chose her own name, is an isomorphic algorithm, bio-digital..."  
Zuse was speechless. "... Bio... Bio-digital?"  
"Yes. They emerged on their own, totally naturally..."  
"Wait a moment! THEY?"  
Susan laughed. "After we've brought Ophelia to the central office, we spotted lights in the Outlands. When we arrived there, there were... I don't know... hundreds of such programs! And they were all like Ophelia, they were all ISOs."  
"ISOs..." He stood up and paced up and down. "ISOs! And they fully emerged on their own?"  
"Yes."  
"Holy User... the root code has to be incredibly complex!"  
"It is, I saw it and, man, it's mind-blowing..."  
Zuse paused for a moment, went into the other room Susan had discovered earlier and came back with a bottle of blue flourescent liquid and two glasses. He poured them both out and sat down again next to Susan, entirely exhausted.  
"ISOs...", he repeated deep in thought. "That's unbelieveable! It is... It is..."  
Susan smiled and looked to the floor. "... a miracle."


	10. 8 The Purge (pt 1)

**_Author's Note: Heya :D Here's the new chap! Just one thing to say: I seperated this one into 2 or 3 parts, I'm not quite sure yet, since it's actually very long and I just wanna warn you that it will become verrrry sad _****(well I guess you know why from the title)... or happy. Depends on whose side you are :P And now enjoy, programs, and don't forget to REVIEW :DD**

**END OF LINE**

* * *

**/The Purge/**

300 cycles since she came to the Grid.

250 ago, she, CLU and Flynn had found the ISOs.  
They were indeed different than other programs. They had a free will and where without special purpose. Much like Susan. She identified with them. Maybe that was the reason, why she got along with them so well.  
Most of the others, however, did not. There were many programs that detested the ISOs, feared them. They believed that noone could trust them concerning their unpredictability. There were even riots out of this hatred, and they became more frequently and brutal. At first, the ISOs had lived in the cities, but once it became clear that they were not welcome there, Flynn had build them their own ISO towers, where thy could live and develop in peace.  
Of course there were also programs, or basics, as 'normal' programs were called since the discovery of the ISOs, that get along extremely well with the new inhabitants of the Grid. One of those was Zuse, whereby the End Of Line Club was one of the few ISO-friendly Clubs on the whole Grid. Zuse let everyone kicked out who held something aganist them. Especially sentries and other security programs were prone to ISO-hate, wherefore only a few were permitted to enter the club. There had also been some whippings, that Zuse had put a stop to at once.  
Or Susan, since she had risen to a successful and highly respected security program by this time. But she did not want to be called like this, since the did not see it as her profession, rather as a hobby among others. She often was a combatant in the games - she even managed to be in the Top 5 list of the best disc fighters. This white guy who she had never gotten to know the real name of, since he always registered himself with another identity, appeared extremely rarely though, in about one or two races in 100 cycles, where Susan did not participate. She had recognised that light cycle races did not appeal to her like disc wars, but of course she had learned from her failures and trained quite often.  
She had also designed a new bike that she rode right now through the luminous streets of the by now huge Tron City. She was on her way to a meeting of representatives of ISOs and Basics. She and Tron would operate as neutral bodies there and cater to their safety while the meeting would take place. CLU, as system administrator, would of course be neutral too, listen to suggestions of improvement and decide what to do next.  
It happened often though, that these meetings were adjourned, since the representatives, in Susan's opinion, took trifles too seriously and set far too high expectations into CLU, so that he could not come to a decision. However, he oftenly decided in favour of the basics, what Susan did not take amiss since she knew that a great responsibility rested on him since Flynn's visits had become rare.  
This was not his fault, though. At first, he had come very often, every day in the realworld. He adored the ISOs so much, they were his master piece, his oeuvre, his gift for mankind. However, everything changed. Jordan, Flynn's wife and mother of Sam, passed away in a car accident. Understandably, he could not visit them oftenly on the Grid, he was too stressed with ENCOM and raising Sam alone. Susan had mourned very long, but her friends CLU, Zuse and especially Tron had comforted her in the most loving way.  
Tron had become one of her best friends. She did not even think of Alan anymore when looking at him. Only one time, the first time they had slept together, he reminded her of Alan.

_She just danced with a few programs she knew, when she spotted Zuse and an ISO at the bar.  
Susan didn't have time for him very often lately, but he cared more for the ISOs anyway. They fascinated him, and the ISOs were thankful that he offered them a club in the big city too.  
Susan knew this ISO. She had met her when she nearly ran her over because this ISO had not been careful while walking over the street. Susan and this ISO became friends and she soon took her with her to the EOLC and introduced her to Zuse. They just clicked with each other.  
This ISO, called Quorra, was now at the bar with him Susan recognised on his piercing looks and gestures that he was flirting with her, and it seemed that it appealed to Quorra. While Susan was dancing she glanced over to them a few times and saw, that they came ever closer to each other. She grinned when Zuse put his hand on Quorra's hip, nipping on his drink. Then something happened that Susan didn't count on: Quorra slid from the bar stool, took Zuse by the hand and the two wound through the dancing programs, past Susan and to the door next to the club entrance. He opened the door for her in a way that's very gentleman-like and let her go first.  
Before he entered too, Susan called for him. He turned to her. Susan grinned widely and pointed her thumbs up. Zuse smirked, indicated a 'Thank you' with a little bow and disappeared behind the door._

_The next day, at the training with Tron, the hologram of a fighting program brushed Susan's arm with its disc.  
"Shit!"  
There the simulation stopped.  
"You always have to take care of your defence. Watch your surroundings.", Tron said and came to her. "When someone tries to hit you from above, it would be unwise..."  
"... to beat him from below at the same time, i know." She sighed. "I'm sorry."  
Tron laughed. "You don't have to be sorry. It's YOUR training."  
"Yes...", she muttered. "I just was... distracted. Thought of something completely different than fighting. Does that happen to you too sometimes?"  
Tron thought for a moment. "No, I believe that never happened."  
She rolled her eyes.  
"Susan, I always concentrate on what I'm doing. That's why I'm a good security program. But I have an advantage. I was written like this."  
"Hm..." Susan sat down and drank from a bottle filled with blue liquid.  
Tron sat down next to her and observed her. When she noticed that, she gave him a questioning look with big cheeks and swallowed. "What?"  
"What distracted you?"  
She thought about it.  
He was a really good friend indeed, but she wasn't sure, if she could talk about that. Would he understand, or was she just getting overly excited?  
"I...", she began, then changed her mind though. "I want to continue training!"  
She got up, put the bottle down and took her disc from her back again, but Tron didn't start the simulation.  
"What's wrong?", he asked in a soft tone.  
She bit her bottom lip. "Alright...", she sighed and turned around. "There's this question bustling about my mind since yesterday, accompanied by... um... physical... movements..."  
He looked at her confused.  
"Well, I wonder... You know, it surprises me, that this become a topic for me just now. Appearently, I was too busy exploring the Grid and helping you, helping CLU and so much more... So I wonder... do programs also have... uh... special needs?"  
"I don't understand what you..." Tron looked away for a moment. "Oh... OH!" He bashfully laughed. "Well, uh... I... um... What makes you think about that?"  
"I watched a friend doing it."  
"WHAT?"  
She burst into laughter. "NO, I DIDN'T MEAN THAT!" They laughed loudly. "I mean, I watched him retiring with a woman."  
"Alright...", Tron managed to say between his laughs.  
Then the two calmed down again and he answered her question. "Well, yes, normally programs develop their needs too..."  
"Hm..." This topic made Susan curious, especially in connection with Tron. "And you? Are you an exception?", she asked smirking.  
"No, no, no, now it's your turn to answer questions! I'd like to know what you meant with 'physical movements'."  
He grinned.  
She laughingly bit her bottom lip. "Weeeell... Let's say my body slowly realises, that it's been a long time that I... satisfied my needs." She grinningly licked over her teeth.  
Tron laughed.  
"Now to MY question.", she said quietly and walked over to him. "Do you also develop your special needs?" She looked at him from below and rose her eyebrow.  
He only smirked a little bit. "Depends on the situation..."  
She stood right in front of him, with just little distance, looked into his eyes and grinned. There she remembered the moment she met Alan the first time. He had looked good. So did Tron. He looked even better with his trained body. And he had no girlfriend...  
"What sort of situations do you mean, Tron?"  
"... Situations like this maybe, depends on how it develops." He grinned teasingly.  
"Mmm..." Susan eyed him up. "This, again, depends, if you really always concentrate on what you're doing. 'Cause if it's like that..." She came very close to him. "... then you have to be the best in every aspect...", she breathed.  
Tron smirked and looked into her eyes.  
Was she just playing with him, or did she really want this? Did he actually have the the right to do something like that, especially since she's Flynn's best friend? And where will this end up? So many questions rushed through his mind. But as he looked into her teal eyes, Tron forgot all about them.  
He firmly took her hips into his hands, pulled her as close as possible to him and kissed her passionately._

Susan and Tron had had such 'training lessons' several times, but they did not tell anybody. They did not want to make a big deal out of it, just have fun together. After all Tron was not more than a friend to Susan. A damn good friend.  
She just wanted to turn into a wide street that guided to the ISO Tower, where the meeting would take place, when something struck her eye.  
Further afar stood three basics around an ISO, that Susan recognised, and kicked kicked him.  
"If you're so special, why is it so easy to beat you up then?", one of the basics bullied him while kicking, and the others laughed.  
Suddenly the basic got struck in the face. The two others took their discs from their back and wanted to face their attacker, but there they got greeted with hits. One got disarmed quickly, the other tried to strike a blow from above, but his wrist got grabbed, twisted and he got a hard kick into his stomach and fell to the floor. The three bobbed up and ran away.  
"Thanks, Sue...", the ISO coughed.  
"Nevermind", she said and helped him up. "The attacks get worse... I can't understand it."  
"Neither do I. What do they have against us?"  
"They're afraid of you..."  
He frowned.  
"You're strange to them. They think, you're unpredictable, that you... I dunno... would derezz programs without any reason or something. Nonsense..."  
The ISO sighed. "I hope they're able to find solutions for closing the Gap between ISOs and basics at the meeting today."  
"I hope so too, Sikon." She looked him over once more and adjusted his clothes, so that one could barely see the luminous ISO mark on his neck. "Sikon, maybe you shouldn't show it so openly here in the city. At least as long as we found a solution, yes?"  
He smiled. "Alright, Susan. And thanks again. I don't understand why you're not system administrator!"  
"You kidding me? I'm not, 'cause I don't want to, lovely!", she laughed.  
"You'd be better than CLU..."  
"Hey!" She made him look at her by flicking and gave him a strict look. "CLU is my friend and he is an awesome System administrator, OK?" She calmed down quickly. "He just... seems to be quite stressed, since Flynn isn't here. I'm sure, he will do something against the problem between basics and ISOs soon." She looked down at her light batton. "I have to go now. Do you need something, Sikon? Do you want me to bring you to your ISO Tower?"  
"No, it's okay."  
She nodded and activated her light cycle again.

* * *

"It was good to see you again.", Ophelia smilingly said.  
Since her emergence in the Sea of Simulation as first ISO, she had become the highest representative of her people. Both the ISOs and basics treated her with respect, since she had become a very dignified and gentle person. In some ISO-friendly circles one quietly wished that she would be promoted to be system administrator or at least co-administrator. Susan took no stocks in these statements. Ophelia was a good friend, though Susan knew that CLU did a good job. After all, he was written to create the perfect system.  
"Good to see you too!" Susan patted her arm, while marveling at her robe, that was white and highly adorned.  
After a nice conversation with her, Ophelia left.  
"You make friends with everyone on the Grid, right?" Tron had his arms folded and slowly walked over to her.  
"Well, there's no program that could resist my charm.", she answered pretendedly arrogant. "Wanna go?"  
Tron nodded and just wanted to go to e exit of e building, when CLU behind them called for Susan and beckoned her over to him.  
Tron left with a wary look on CLU. Since the discovery of the ISOs, he had developed a certain scepticism towards him, since his trust in Tron had decreased  
because of the quickly spreading Grid bugs, especially in the ISO Towers. Wrongfully of course, since Tron has always been able to prevent programs from harm and the problem has never been too much for him.  
Susan strolled over to CLU. "So, what's the matter?"  
He sighed. "What do you think about the ISO's receiveables?"  
She thought about it for a moment. "I'm... not sure. They seem to make sense. For example, that ISOs should be trained to sentries too. This would integrate them more and maybe clarify that the ISOs aren't as cruel as some security programs think. They have some weird conceptions about them..."  
CLU looked away. "Anything else?"  
"Yeah... I... um... I actually wanted to float a suggestion too, but then I didn't have the courage to...", she said with a shy smile.  
"Tell me!"  
"Well... I have the feeling that the naming, basics and ISOs, extends the gap between them. I know, we're called like this for over 250 cycles, but I still hear basics complain about it. It makes them feel downgraded, not as important as an ISO, just because of their name."  
"You mean, we should get an other name than 'Basic'?"  
"What I mean, is that we all, ISOs included, should be called program. After all, that's what we all are, that's what connects us... But I guess, that's a bad idea..."  
"No, no, the thought is very interesting and would put the basics in a happier mood probably."  
"And the ISOs?"  
He looked away again and stooped over a virtual model of an ISO Tower.  
"I don't know." He looked at her. "What else did you hear from the basics in relation to the ISOs?"  
Susan hissed disparagingly. "Most of them think they're dangerous..."  
"... because they're unpredictable...", CLU murmured while looking at the model.  
"Discontinuity. That's also the reason why the bugs in their towers are worse than everywhere else. They are a danger for the system... or at least can cause it..."  
Susan gave him an appalled look. "ISOs are no danger, CLU, they are a miracle!"  
His head snapped up. "Sorry, I meant... deviations."  
She shook her head. "They are wonderful programs. Independed, determined and pure."  
"But exactly this independence could become dangerous.", he tried to persuade her.  
"No, CLU, they are not dangerous!" Slowly Susan became angry. Sometimes CLU seemed quite ignorant.  
"They are not perfect though!"  
"Neither are we!"  
"Without them the system could become perfect! I could take it to itsmaximal potential! IF THEY JUST WEREN'T EXISTING!"  
Susan backed off. She didn't know him like that. "Woh, relax, dude...", she whispered.  
For a short moment, he looked as if he wanted to shout at her again, but then his facial expression changed and he looked soft and innocent again.  
"I'm sorry, Sue... I didn't want to..." He sighed. "That's all so hard. And those meetings don't help..." He stooped over the model again, but this time he tiredly closed his eyes.  
Susan noticed, that his circuitry colour looked a bit dim. "You urgently need energy!" She came to him, put her arm around his shoulder and a hand on the other. "You should rest..."  
He rubbed his eyes. "I can't. Not now."  
"You have to think of yourself too, buddy, not about others." She gave him a little peck on the cheek. "Go to sleep..."  
He looked at her and she smiled. Then he hugged her and whispered: "Thanks for your support, Sue."  
Then he pushed her a little bit away from him in order to look into her eyes again and to put her face into his hands. He smiled tenderly. "Did actally anyone ever tell you, how beautiful you are?" He stroke over her brown hair.  
There the situation became extremely unpleasant for her. She softly pushed him away from her and stopped smiling. "CLU, what... uh... what are you doing?"  
A bit shamefaced he looked away and let up on her. "Nothing... Sorry."  
For a short while both kept quiet. CLU thoughtfully looked to the ground and Susan eyed him up sceptically. He had changed. She had noticed it a long time ago, though, it had never expressed oneself as distinctly as now. She even knew since when he changed: Since the discovery of the ISOs.  
"Susan?" He still didn't look at her. "Would... would you actually always support me? Be by my side?"  
"Depends on what you're doing. I will always support those who are of pure conscience, in my opinion."  
"The ISOs then...", he icily said.  
The atmosphere had changed promptly. At a single blow, CLU looked threatening.  
He closer his eyes. "Thank you for staying. You can go now."  
Once more Susan looked him over and left.


	11. 8 The Purge (pt 2)

**_Author's Note: Iiiiii'm sorry _ Was busy with my first film project and job stuff. But I hope you'll forgive me if I say THAT THE ACTION BEGINS NOW! ARE YOU EXCITED? ARE YOUUU? EEEEEH? ... You are excited ;) ENJOY AND DON'T FORGET TO REVIEW!_**

**END OF LINE**

* * *

**/The Purge (pt 2)/**

In thoughts she drove over a long road to Tron City.  
What did CLU mean? What did he want her support with? And why was he so against the ISOs? He had discovered them together with her and Flynn. He knew, that they are definitely not dangerous. Though, he was different in their presence.  
She couldn't understand it. He has always been so peaceful and gentle. Every time Flynn had visited, he had been so excited to show the creator the system's progress. He had always been ambitious, no doubt, and he most certainly wanted to create the perfect system, at any cost. But what was his definition of the perfect system? Maximum potential, he had said. However, the creation of a whole new species put the Grid to a far higher level! Maximal potential didn't matter anymore since the creation of the ISOs.  
'His circuits were probably overloaded, nothing else.', she calmed herself down and decided not to tell Tron about CLU's freak-out. He was a friend. And he was a good system administrator. He definitely wanted to keep the peace on the Grid.  
Suddenly something very bright lit up in far distance, jolted her out of her thoughts and she stopped.  
The portal was open. Kevin was finally here again.  
Susan grinned and opened the throttle again.

* * *

"Susan!"  
Flynn hugged her quickly. They haven't seen each other for 8 cycles and therefore, Susan held on to her friend.  
"Long time no see!"  
"You've got no idea, Kev..."  
As they let go of each other, both were grinning broadly. "How's Sam? How is he in school? I want details!"  
He laughed. "It's been only 2 months! There haven't been many changes, man."  
"Still, kids grow up so fast..."  
"You're right... Oh! I nearly forgot! I brought something for you." He took a little white cube out of his pocket. "Alice Cooper, Poison, exactly as you wanted."  
"Ah, music! Thanks!"  
"No problem, man! But, hey, how are my ISOs doin?"  
"There've been more attacks and riots and the representatives aren't coming up with a solution either.", she answered.  
"Hm..." Flynn frowned. "And CLU? Did his relationship with them improve?"  
"He's always polite, but I believe, he feels a bit threatened by them, just like other Basics..."  
"What makes you think that?", he asked puzzled.  
Susan didn't want to unsettle him and just as little did she want to stir up a controversy between him and CLU, however, CLU's statements have been very offensive against the ISOs.  
"I... I don't know. It's more like a feeling. But you should talk to him."  
"I will! And now I want to see something impressive again.", he grinningly said and rubbed his hands. "Where's Tron?"

* * *

Flynn slipped a 10 dollar note into Susan's hand.  
She had made the bet with him, who would be faster at the central office with the light cycle and she won the race. Well, of course Tron had been the first there, but she hadn't bet with him.  
With a happy "Ka-ching!" she took the note.  
"You had the home field advantage!", Flynn laughed.  
"And you shouldn't have agreed on this bet!", she answered with a complacent grin.  
"What are you actually going to do with that? It's not worth anything here!"  
"I'll show it to Zuse. He's surely interested in User money."  
"Well then okay. Now, let's go to CLU."  
Just as Tron wanted to walk in with Flynn, Susan grabbed his arm. "Flynn should talk to CLU alone."  
Both looked at her in surprise, shrugged and followed her advice.  
Susan and Tron waited outside of the building. They carried on an easy conversation, laughed and were, above all, very relaxed.  
Tron leant against his bike and smiled while watching Susan playing with her skin, since it slightly lit up in different colours at the spot of touch, showing the circuits within herself. "Have I already told you that it's great that you finally settled down in this world?"  
"I'm sure you have. It's a wonderful place, beautiful and peaceful..."  
Then Flynn and CLU came over to them.  
For the first time CLU wasn't wearing his usual clothes, leather jacket and so on, but something that looked like a combat suit with white circuitry colour, much like Tron's. Susan eyed him up from top to bottom. He did not look bad. Well-conditioned, like Tron, whose irritated look signified that he had not seen CLU like this before too.  
"Good to see you again!", Flynn said and patted CLU's shoulder.  
"Flynn, you should go now. The portal closes in a millicycle...", Tron reminded him.  
"A millicycle lasts long enough, I've got time."  
"I think, it'd be better if you listen to Tron. The portal is far away.", CLU said.  
Flynn sighed. "Alright, I miss Sam anyway. Well then... Bye for now, CLU, and please take to heart what I told you."  
"I will."  
Susan hugged Flynn. "See you soon, Kev."  
He nodded and turned to go, when CLU asked: "Won't you accompany him, Susan?"  
"Nah, she rather goes to this club instead of enjoying the company of her so-called best friend!", Flynn laughed.  
Susan stuck her tongue out, then looked at CLU. "I urgently need a drink."  
"Wouldn't it be good if you went with the two? You know as... double protection?"  
"I ain't good enough, hm?", Tron said coldly.  
CLU gave him a disparaging look for a short moment and turned to Susan again. "Just saying... Maybe Flynn would only come in some cycles again."  
"Why do you want her to come with us so badly?", Tron distrustfully asked.  
Just as CLU wanted to answer, Susan interrupted him with a laugh: "It's okay, CLU, I'm a big girl, I can deal with that. But I reeeally need my drink now!"  
He murmured: "Alright.."  
"Now, bye guys!" Flynn waved farewell and he and Tron drove off.  
"Why did you really want me to come with them?", she asked curiously.  
"Oh, no reason." He soothingly held his hands up. "Hey, I thought, it'd be nice if you accompanied your friends, but if you don't want to..."  
She smiled and as she turned to go, CLU asked: "Which club are you going to? I haven't been to one lately, maybe I'll allow myself some drinks too after work. Like you said, I need to relax more."  
"End Of Line Club. It's in an eastern district, the ads will lead you to it. It'd be great to see you there! We could play a drinking game!", she laughed. "The first one to have an overload loses!"  
He smilingly nodded.  
Again she turned to go but paused for a moment. "CLU?"  
"Yeah?"  
She hesitated, then began to smirk and couldn't resist any longer. "You look hot."

* * *

The club was full to bursting, like always. The fact that many of the former regular guests have not shown up for several cycles, since they were not ISO-friendly enough, in order to hang out in the End Of Line, didn't harm business.  
Susan sat at the bar with Zuse and listend to the newest gossip. It actually did not interest her, but she always liked to listen to him, not least because of his soft voice. When he finished his story, Susan looked around shortly and said: "Hey, sometimes I think that it starts to become a bit cramped here..."  
He sighed. "Yes, I know... That's why I considered to move to Downtown."  
"Really?", she asked amazed.  
Zuse smiled proudly. "Yes. There club would certainly become more popular there and who knows, it might makes some basics change their attitude towards the ISOs."  
"Uh, I'll toast to that!" She took the glass, that the barkeeper just put down, and raised it."To the End Of Line Club!"  
Zuse followed suit. "May the party never stop!"  
Just as they wanted to drink, he suddenly got grabbed on his shoulder and almost spilled his drink thereby.  
"Zuse, I have to talk to you!", a program breathed.  
Susan knew her. She was an ISO, who oftenly hung out at the club.  
"Darling, I'm in the middle of a conversation..."  
"Please, it's really important!"  
Zuse glanced to Susan. Both recognised how excited and hysterical she seemed to be.  
"I'll go dancing.", Susan whispered.  
He nodded and focussed on the perturbed program.  
Why was she so flustered? Even though Susan normally was not interested in gossip, she became curious now. She danced, like she said, but made sure that she wasn't too far away so that she could overhear fractions of the conversation. She even came closer while dancing, when she noticed that Zuse's smile changed into a horrified expression. Though, she was not able to understand what they said, only incoherent fragments of sentences.  
Then she heard something that made her stiffen.  
"... Tron dead?"  
Susan's heart skipped a beat.  
This ISO was lying. Tron could not be dead. Why should he? Grid Bugs were no problem for him, neither any other program. Besides, who should oppose him? He was the boss of the security.  
Everything became silent for her and she only listened to the conversation.  
"... didn't see the deresolution. CLU was standing over him and..."  
CLU.  
No, she was lying. She was lying! This was simply not true, Flynn would never allow...  
"Kevin...", Susan whispered.  
A sudden wave of fear overcame her. She shook of her shock and barged her way through the dancing people. Even though she was absolutely sure that everything was in best order, she wanted to see if everything was okay with her friends. As she arrived at the entrance door, something struck her eye. Through the window above her she could see a huge airship approaching the building. What was THAT?  
Then the entrance door opened with a hiss and three sentries entered the club. Susan gazed after them, how they regardlessly stomped through the dancing crowd, directly to Zuse.  
He did not notice the sentries approaching him. He was just holding the hand of this hysterical program and triumphantly shouted: "Vive la Resis..."  
"Program Zuse?"  
"...tance..."  
With a polite tone in his voice he turned to the security program that had spoken to him. "I am sorry, but sentries have no business here. So, unfortunately, I have to ask you boys to go..."  
"You are placed under arrest."  
"What?", Zuse asked laughingly.  
"You are cooperating with enemies of the Grid. You will be taken to the central office..."  
"Wait a moment! I am not cooperating with enemies of the Grid! The Grid has no enemies!"  
"Enemies of the Grid, commonly known as ISOs."  
Many programs in the club had stopped dancing and curiously looked over to the sentries.  
Zuse seemed to be angry and shocked. "What?! That's ridiculous! ISOs are not..."  
"You will be taken to the central office,", the sentry repeated and the other two grabbed Zuse's upper arms. "where CLU will call you to account."  
The music stopped playing.  
"Nonsense!" Zuse broke free. "I will not explain myself to CLU for not seeing the ISOs as the big threat like he does and like you sentries do!"  
"In case you refuse to follow this command,", the program continued and all three pulled out their staffs, on whose end an orange ray appeared, that was as destructive as the edge of a disc. "you will be subject to immediate deresolution."  
Before they could attack him, the sentries suddenly got pierced by a flying disc and desintegrated into little cubes. Programs in the club screamed out. Susan caught her disc again and looked to Zuse. He looked extremely confused at first, but recovered immediately.  
"No worries, programs, the End Of Line Club is safe for now.", he loudly said and smiled calmingly.  
Then Susan felt the floor vibrating, looked out of the window above her and stiffened. The huge airship was now directly in front of the building. There was one big hole in it that now began to glow in orange.  
Susan opened her eyes wide, quickly turned around and screamed "ZUSE!", pointing up.  
Suddenly everyone got into panic. Zuse called for Susan, and grabbed her hand, when she was near. He hectically tried to edge himself and her through the now screaming crowd to a big window at the back of the club, while the others pushed forward to the entrance door. It was too late though.  
The airship fired only once and blew up the whole club thereby.  
Those, who were lucky to have been next to a window like Zuse and Susan, didn't get derezzed at once, but were tossed high into the air.  
Susan twirled around as she fell. The wind whipped against her chest and took her breath. She saw other programs dash against buidlings, being smashed to pieces with a last outcry. She knew this will happen to her too, if she wouldn't do anything soon, but she had no idea what.  
Suddenly she got grabbed at her back, so that she did not twirl anymore, and turned to prone position, whereby she could see the quickly approaching ground. Zuse held a light baton in front of her face and shouted: "LIGHT JET!". She clutched at the baton, he pushed himself away from her and both pulled their batons apart. Immediately Susan felt how the parts of it clicked into place in front of her, around her formed a jet and she pulled the handholds as hard as she could to herself, so that she flew steeply upwards. Out of a sudden though, the jet got hit by a falling program, she lost control over it, banged against Zuse's light jet, both flew in a high arch through the air and hit the ground roughly.  
Susan breathed hard. She was lying on her back with eyes closed. She knew she wasn't hurt badly, still she felt unable to move.  
Zuse lay on his stomach, groaned with pain and then leant onto his elbows. He coughed, stood up and slowly walked over to Susan.  
"Are you okay?", he gasped out.  
She opened her eyes and nodded.  
Zuse helped her getting up. As she was standing next to him, she looked up.  
Where once the End Of Line Club was, there niw just stood a ruin, a derezzing building that slowly collapsed. Next to it hovered this huge airship, now looking very threating.  
"Your club... I'm so sorry...", she murmured.  
Zuse wiped the mud off of his clothes, but didn't say anything.  
Susan thought for a moment while watching the airship slowly leaving this place.  
How could this happen? CLU must have kept this airship a secret for a long time, since Susan had never seen it before. And what was that supposed to mean 'ISOs are the enemies of the Grid'?  
Then it hit her: With the destruction of the End Of Line Club, CLU could kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, there have been many ISOs and ISO-friendly Basics, that he could get rid of. On the other hand, it was surely symbolic too, since the club had been one of the very few shelters for ISOs in the city. With its destruction many ISOs would certainly entrench themselves in their ISO-Towers. But all of this lead to one question: What was going on?  
"Zuse, what did this girl tell you?"  
He looked at her and immediately looked away again. He appearently knew something that would hurt her, though she had to find out as much about CLU's plans as she could.  
"Zuse...", she said threateningly.  
He sorrowfully looked into her eyes. "It was a coup. CLU stopped Tron and Flynn when they were been on their way to the portal and sicced his blackguards on them." He looked away. "Tron sacrificed himself so that Flynn could escape..."  
Susan could not move at first. Then she laughingly shook her head. "No. No, Tron can't be defeated. No, she must have been mistaken, Tron..." Tears rolled down her cheeks, her smile faded and made way for a desperate facial expression. "Tron is far too good, he can't be..." She began to sob.  
It felt like someone would choke her. Tron, one of her best friend, was dead? Murdered by another friend? It couldn't be true. It must not be true.  
Susan bend forward and took some deep breaths. She felt a hand on her back.  
"I am so sorry, Susan,", Zuse whispered. "but now we have to..."  
"..search for Flynn.", she finished his sentence with a shivery voice.  
She straighten herself, wiped the tears off of her face and looked up to the derezzing building.  
There was no time to mourn. If it was true, Flynn was in extreme danger and had to know what happened here. He had to get to the portal and take care of the problems here from outside.  
"Did she tell you, where CLU caught them?"  
Zuse thought for a moment. "Somewhere at a southern district."  
"Alright..." Not very precisely, however the only reference point they had.  
Once again she looked up with a determined gaze. "Let's go."


	12. 8 The Purge (pt 3)

_**Author's Note: New chap YAAY :D I'm sorry but I had to split 'The Purge' into 4 chaps, the last (the next one) will be very short. But believe me it makes sense... or not. I'll do it anyway. Feel informed ;)**_

_**And now prepare for sorrow and tears. If you don't feel like this YOU'RE A SUPPORTER OF CLU O_O *dramatic music***_

_**Enjoy and REVIEW ^^**_

**END OF LINE**

* * *

**/The Purge (pt 3)/**

"Look!"  
Susan pointed at a gleaming field on the wall of a building showing a picture of Susan saying:

WANTED

"That can't be true..." Now she understood why CLU wanted her to come with Tron and Flynn. He wanted to derezz her too.  
"We have to avoid security programs. They're loyal to CLU..."  
They had to be extremely careful, scurried from one side street to the next.  
When they were just crossing the street, Zuse got grabbed by his arm. Both turned around quickly and relaxed again when they saw the ISOs standing next to them.  
"You've made me jump all right! We thought you were sentries!", Zuse laughed.  
Though the ISOs remained serious. "Zuse, we need your help!"  
He shortly looked to Susan in confusion and turned to the scared ISOs with a sensitive voice. "What happened?"  
"CLU! He is having every ISO in the city murdered!"  
"WHAT?!", Zuse and Susan said with one voice.  
An other ISO said with tearstained voice: "It's true! We've seen it with our own eyes!"  
And an other: "We could get free and run away, but the other four..." His voice broke.  
The first one spoke again. "Zuse, please, help us! We heard that you can get anyone anywhere and we have to get out of here!"  
He hesitantly looked at each of them. "Of course.", he finally answered resolutely. "We'll get you out of the city."  
They hastened forward, Susan and Zuse in front, the three scared ISOs behind them.  
"What do you want to do?", Susan worriedly whispered. "I'm sure we can't use the big streets and certainly every Solar Sailer geht's checked!"  
"Don't worry, I have a plan. I did this several times before."  
"Huh?"  
"Forged discs."  
"You can do that?"  
He nodded. "For criminals or programs with other reasons to leave the city without being seen. I did not establish my reputation only by being an extroverted club owner..."  
"And... What are we going to do now?"  
"We'll go to a storehouse and see if there are some co-operative sirens. If not, we'll have break in."  
"Break in? Flynn won't like that..."  
"Flynn's not here, we're on our own!", he hissed.  
Susan looked at him in shock. "Zuse, we don't even know where he is! And don't talk to me like that again, is that understood?"  
He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I did not want to do that. I know he's your friend, but for now we have to shift for ourselves. Without Users. We will smuggle those ISOs out of the city and then we'll search for Flynn. Probably, he's already on his way to the portal and then it's just a matter of time when CLU finally gets stopped."  
He tenderly looked at her and she calmed down.  
"Alright... When we're in this storehouse... what then?"  
"We'll get some inactivated discs, manipulate them so that the ISOs cannot be recognised as ISOs and go to the solar sailers together."  
"Okay..." Susan looked to the ground solicitously. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Zuse looking at her. Suddenly he took her hand in his and squeezed it lightly. She looked into his silver eyes.  
"Everything will be fine, dear."

* * *

Susan pressed her disc into the door of the storehouse, but nothing happened.  
"We have to find another entrance.", Zuse said and he and Susan walked forward again. They turned left... and froze.  
Four sentry programs stood in the middle of the street and turned to them now.  
For a moment everything was deathly silent.  
Susan took a deep breath. Her look became dark. Quietly she said: "Go."  
The ISOs hesitated, turned around then and followed her command by running in the other direction. Zuse stood still.  
"I meant you too."  
He darkly stared straightforward. "I won't let you alone."  
They looked at eachother. Susan nodded and looked forward again. Then both took their discs from their backs, just as the sentries took their own weapons.  
Contemporaneously with the sentries they tore forward.  
Susan caught one immediately, rammed her disc directly into his chest. Then she pounced on the next. She dodged and jumped when they tried to hit her, blocked punches, moved lightning-fast and derezzed yet another.  
There she recognised, that even more came running out of the side streets. Frenziedly she darted at them, fell into a rage, let off steam on these programs, but they were too many.  
"We have to go!", Zuse shouted, grabbed her by her arm and pulled her with him. They ran as fast as they could. They were already fully out of breath, still they didn't stop.  
At a big lighted street they turned right and stood still again.  
Further away, the 3 ISOs from earlier and 2 others kneeled on the ground. Susan recognised Sikon, who now sobbingly looked at her. Behind them there stood sentry programs with their discs in their hands. They raised them.  
"NO!", Susan shouted, before the sentries rammed their discs into the ISO's necks, who shattered into little cubs.  
"NOOOO!", she shrieked again, wanted to pounce on them, but Zuse hold her firmly and arduously dragged her away.  
"You can't do anything! Come now!"  
"LET GO OF ME!", she screamed while thick tears ran down her cheeks. The sentries ran up to them.  
"You have no chance!" Zuse desperately tried to haul her into another direction, finally she gave in and they dashed off.  
They ran as fast as their legs allowed them to. Though Susan did not feel her legs anymore. She only felt anger, nothing else, boundless fury with everything around her. She did not even notice the long distance they ran, just let Zuse lead her and was surprised then when they suddenly stopped behind a high building.  
They still were totally out of breath, but Susan was it out of rage.  
"I'll kill them all!", she brought forth with clenched teeth and wanted to go back, but Zuse grabbed her arm.  
"Are you crazy?!", he hissed. "They'll delete you without flinching, you've just seen that!"  
"I'm fine with that, but I would take many with me if I died!"  
She wrested herself free, but Zuse now grasped both of her arms so firmly that she could hardly move.  
"Do you hear what you're talking?! If you died now, everything was for nothing! I know, you want revenge, I can understand that so damn good. I knew all of these ISOs by name, just as I knew every single program in my club. But we must not fall into a rage now! We have to have our head on straight and find a way to prevent more damage. Do you understand?"  
He stared at her with his glowing eyes and she felt how the anger slowly faded away. Zuse was right. She couldn't do anything for those ISOs, however for all others, if they acted now.  
Susan nodded slightly.  
"Good..." He let go of her. "We search for Flynn now. He has to do something about that."  
Just as Zuse wanted to go, Susan said: "I should search for Flynn. You should go to the ISO Towers as fast as possible and spread the word about what happens here. You're good at that. You especially have to inform Ophelia."  
Zuse seemed surprised, that she'd recovered so quickly and thought for a moment. "Yes... Yes, you're right... I'm on my way."  
She stopped him and looked into his eyes. "Be safe."  
He nodded and smiled lightly. Then he hurried off.

* * *

Susan lay on the roof of a lower building and peeked down on a big square, where hundreds of programs gathered. Also the side streets were full of basics and all of them looked to a stage in the front that was yet empty.  
"What's going on there?", Quorra asked next to her.  
Susan had discovered her when she had been in search of Flynn. She had not found him, though she got to know from others that he was still alive and appearently also fought for the ISOs somewhere in is huge city. However, the more he fought, the stronger became CLU, since the basics gradually lost their faith in him because of his attempt to rescue the ISOs, and this in such a short time. Indeed, not even two millicycles have passed since Susan had seen him the last time. Everything happened so fast.  
Quorra had come across her shortly after Zuse went to the ISO-Towers. She had flung her arms around Susan's neck when she realised that she was no sentry. She had told her that she could escape when a few sentry programs just wanted to execute her and some other ISOs in the middle of the street. The others did not make it.  
"I don't know...", Susan answered.  
Then suddenly the masses began to cheer when CLU walked onto the platform. Attentively, Quorra and Susan listened to his speech.  
"My dear programs of the Grid!  
Didn't I predict it hundreds of cycles ago? Didn't I warn a long time ago against the ISO's unpredictability, that the ISOs are a risk for the Grid? They possess no directives, no purpose. They are dangerous intruders. We on the other hand HAVE a purpose, drudge cycle after cycle to create the perfect system despite these truders. And how does the creator thank us? He would rather concern himself with these unsteady creatures than with us, his own creations. Flynn, our User, did not listen to my warnings, although the Gridbugs became severer and more frequently, bewilderingly especially in the ISO-Towers, of course.  
But this User remained inactive! Ignored our lamentations and still let us toil, even for this useless tribe of the ISOs. And today we count the cost for his decisions.  
My dearest programs, I stand here before you with a heavy heart. The unpredictability of the ISOs gained the upper hand. It saddens me to have to inform you that our great guardian Tron has been attacked by a horde of wild ISOs and... got erased."  
A murmur went through the crowd, some programs screamed of shock. Susan and Quorra looked at eachother.  
"I know, I know, my dear programs, it's a heavy setback. However, we cannot remain in sorrow for too long. Tron's sacrifice must not be for nothing!  
We are here for too long to leave our beloved Grid to the ISOs uncontested. Wo has been here before them? We were! Who kept this world's system intact for more than 350 cycles? We did! And who will defend the Grid from the ISOs now?"  
"WE WILL!", the programs shouted enthusiastically.  
CLU laughed. "You're right, my dear programs! We will do that! As of today each ISO and everyone who helps them are declared as enemies of the Grid!"  
Susan looked around. On every building CLU light up, how he held his speech, and his voice resounded in the whole city, so that everyone could hear him. Surely this was also broadcast in every other city on the Grid like Argon, but of course not in the ISO-Towers.  
"They finally have to be brought to justice for what they've done. For Tron and for ALL OF US! Once for all, I will PURGE the Grid from this plague! I will protect all of us from this ISO nemesis!  
I tell you, my programs, break the chains of suppression and don't let yourself be enslaved any longer, neither by the ISOs, nor by the USERS. The ISOs are not better than we are, no miracle, how Flynn described them. So why are WE called Basics? We. Are. Programs! And that is how we shall be known from now on! Today we are basics no more!"  
The masses cheered loudly.  
"And I, CLU, system administrator, say: The tyranny of the Users comes to an end with immediate effect! We are programs!"  
Cheering.  
"We are the creators!"  
Yet louder cheering.  
"WE. ARE. FREE!"  
Susan never had experienced such loud cheering before. The programs screamed their mind to heaven, as if they would never have to speak again.  
Quorra and Susan stared down.  
How could that happen? How could such a beautiful world, a paradise, become hell?  
They couldn't understand it.  
"We have to bring you out of here at once, Quorra..."  
Susan and Quorra hastened down the building over to a platform with various vehicles. Quorra climbed into a little airship, wherein there was space for two, and just as she wanted to help Susan to get in, a flying disc threw her off balance.  
"Susan!"  
She stopped Quorra from getting out of the airship by holding up a hand.  
On her left side, there were 6 sentry programs Running towards them. "That's the wanted one!"  
"They're here for me, not you...", Susan whispered. "Listen. You take off now and go to the ISO Towers to tell everybody what CLU said."  
"I won't go without you!"  
"You have to! Do you want all ISOs to get killed? I'll manage..." Susan nervously looked to the sentries that were quickly approaching. "And, Quorra, promise me to avoid dangers. It's not gutless to hide, if you can preserve a whole race through it."  
"I... promise..."  
Susan nodded, smiled lightly and ran off.  
The sentries ran after her and did not even notice the airship rising into the air.  
Susan ran as fast as she could, reached down to her left thigh and took the baton, which was attached to it, into her hand. She'd always considered it complete nonsense to take 2 light batons with oneself, but now Tron's advice made sense. She jumped up, felt the light cycle under her body and opened up.  
She already heard the others behind her. Since she knew that those kind of sentries have faster bikes, she activated her white light ribbon and turned off the long road into the Outlands. She hoped, that they could not follow her, but there she heard the same bang, that her bike has made when she had left the road, yet 6 times.  
"Great..."  
She drove through a tunnel and sneaked a peek behind her. The 6 sentries came closer and closer. Susan made zigzag movements with her light cycle and hoped that somebody would be so stupid as to crash into her ribbon, but noone did.  
There was already the first one near her and rammed her. She went into a skid a bit, but didn't want to put up with it and rammed him back. Suddenly the two bikes became entangled. The sentry quickly took his disc from his back and tried to disconnect from her cycle.  
Susan took her own disc into her hand, did not free her bike though, but hit the sentry's head with it. Immediately he crumbled and Susan broke her light cycle away from his. Without its driver, the sentry's bike fell back and nearly crashed into another sentry. Though Susan didn't have that much luck.  
"Well, at least there's only 5 more..."  
The Outlands became bumpier and she skidded lightly even without being rammed. But she wasn't alone with this. When she looked over her shoulder, she noticed that the sentries decelerated a bit the bumpier the way became, since their light cycles were designed for the game grid rather than for the rough terrain of the Outlands.  
However, sentries were no cowards. 2 of them opened up again.  
Now one was on Susan's right, one on her left. There was no possibility to escape. They gave her a grilling, pushed her ever closer between them until their light cycles already touched hers, which sent out sparks. The two took their discs from the back.  
'This is the end...', Susan thought and closed her eyes.  
Suddenly there was the sound of a light cycle above them. They looked up and recognised the white driver, whose name Susan didn't know, who now drove over the rocky hill next to them. He accelerated fully, turned right, flew over them and landed to their right. Susan instantly braked, since she knew what would follow. The white one took one of his impossible turns and both sentries crashed into his light ribbon.  
Susan dodged to the left, the direction the white one also went. Now she saw him in front of her and noticed him turning his head in her direction. With his hand he gave her the sign that she should keep to the left. She nodded and followed his order. There it suddenly went up and when Susan looked behind her, she realised that none of the remaining sentries followed her, but the white one.  
She tried to concentrate. He was obviously trying to save her, but Susan didn't want him getting derezzed because of her and looked for a way to drive downwards to the others again. But since there was no way to be found, she could just view the specatcle.  
The white one drove straight. The others followed him. Suddenly they veered to the left. Susan frowned and looked ahead. There was a huge rock with just a tiny hole at its bottom in front of the drivers. She looked at the white one again, but contrary to her expectation, he did not dodge to the left like the others. He just kept on steadily ahead.  
"What the hell are you doing?!"  
Why did he want to derezz himself?  
Susan desperately searched for a possibility to help him, did not find a way down from the hill though. So she just had to witness how the sentries rode on the save left side and her saviour directly towards this wall of rock.  
He was only a few metres in front of it, when he suddenly let himself fall on the ground with his bike, quickly slid through the narrow gap in the rock, got up again with an elegant twist and just drove on as if nothing had happened.  
Susan laughed loudly. He'd done it again. He just caught her off-guard with his unbelievable driving skills again.  
With this short performance and the fact that he had not had to laboriously drive around the tremendous rock, he now had a huge advantage and trapped the sentries with a wide turn to the left, whereby one of the crashed into the white ribbon.  
Susan, in the meantime, found a ramp downwards in front of her. She seized the chance and suddenly drove directly next to the white one. He looked into her direction, then over his shoulder and said with an electronical voice: "We will trap this one."  
Susan looked behind her, nodded and activated her light ribbon, through which one sentry was trapped immediately. The two slowly closed the gap between them and the sentry went into a skid. Suddenly it swept him from his light cycle and he flew in a high arch through the air... directly in front of Susan's bike.  
She held her breath and ran into him. The light cycle rolled over and Susan got tossed into the air. The white one reacted lightning-fast. He jumped up, his bike became a baton again, he caught Susan and reactivated his light cycle again.  
Everything happened so fast that Susan was not even sure how she happened to be on the white one's light cycle, pressed against his back, all of a sudden. She just held fast onto him and looked at him in amazement. He turned his head to her. Suddenly there was their follower's orange light ribbon in front of them.  
"WATCH OUT!"  
The white one tried to brake and turn to the left, but because of double weight on the bike they couldn't dodge anymore. They crashed into the ribbon, flew over it and directly into a chasm.  
The sentry had witnessed the crash and deactivated his light ribbon. He decelerated and turned around in a wide curve. At the scene of accident he stopped, descended from his vehicle and looked down the chasm.  
Nothing. They were derezzed.  
He praised himself for his good work and already pictured a medal in reward when he rode back to the city.


	13. 8 The Purge (pt 4)

**_Author's Note: Here's the last chap of 'The Purge'! :D Like I said, it's pretty short. Maybe one note: I listened to '_****Adagio for Tron****_' while writing this cause it supports atmosphere and displays the feelings of the characters._**

_**One little mindfuck before you read: The next chap will be the last of the story. BAM! xD but don't worry, you'll like the end ;) well at least I hope so**_

_**And now ENJOY and PLEASE REVIEW! :)**_

**END OF LINE**

* * *

**/The Purge (pt 4)/**

They didn't move until the sentry's light cycle was out of hearing.  
As they were falling down the chasm the white one had fired a light cable that had clung to a ledge like a grappling hook. Susan had just been able to catch the cable, just above the hand of the white one. He had signaled her to be silent, since the sentry couldn't see them from the ledge.  
So they froze in total silence and their own weight tore at their arms. Susan pressed her lids together and ground her teeth. All her muscles were tensed to the worst and it hurt incredibly bad.  
The sound of the sentry light cycle had faded away fully now. The white one pressed a button and slowly they got pulled up. They heaved themselves on the ledge, lay on the back and panted of exhaustion.  
Susan's helmet had formed back, but she kept her eyes closed. Her limbs felt like pudding, especially her arms, and an uncomfortable tingling pain lingered in her entire body.  
"Is everything all right?", came an electronic voice next to her.  
She slowly opened her eyes. The white one kneeled beside her.  
"Yeah..." Susan coughed and leant onto her elbows. "Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks... I wouldn't have made it without you..."  
He laughed mechanically. "Like I said..." His helmet formed back and uncovered the smiling pale face with the silver eyes. "I won't leave you alone."  
"Zuse!", Susan gasped. "What the...? How did you...? I'm..." She was so taken by surprise that she couldn't even form a real sentence.  
All of those cycles she had admired this white rider, had even hated him at first for destroying her bike, and now it turned out to be one of her confidants, to be exactly that one, who she had never expected anything like this from. Zuse had always been just the playful club owner to her, elegant and peaceful. That he now turned out to be a master of light cycle - riding, totally distbured her picture of him and stunned her so much that she could just stare at him speechlessly.  
He bit his bottom lip lightly smiling. "I wanted to tell you before..."  
Suddenly something came to her mind. "The ISOs! Have you been to the Towers?"  
He sighed sadly. "Unfortunately the streets to the Towers were cordoned off everywhere and the solar sailers were in abeyance. I was just looking for a way to the Towers through the Outlands, when I found you. Luckily..."  
She stood up. "Alright. That means we have to find a way to the ISO Towers as fast as possible. Where's your light cycle?"  
He seperated the two parts of the white baton in his hand and white streams of light formed his light cycle, but they were twitching while doing so. Then they sprung back into the baton.  
"It is damaged... We cannot count on it now."  
Susan felt panic rise inside her. "But we have to go there! Quorra and I..."  
"Quorra?", he asked wonderingly.  
"Yes, I met her shortly after we've seperated. We overheard a speech by CLU, wherein he announced that every ISO should get erased, that the Grid should get purged from them!"  
Zuse's jaw dropped. "All of them?"  
She nodded. "I helped Quorra out of the city. I told her to fly to the Towers with an airship and warn them, but now that this has been a mistake and that I just sent her into the lion's den..." Her voice became so shaky at the end, that she couldn't go on speaking. She was so frightened. CLU must not carry out his threat. He had to be stopped.  
Zuse gently put his hands on her shoulders. "Quorra certainly managed to warn them, but I would say, we go there nonetheless. And we must hurry."  
"But how?"  
"On foot."  
"But this could take us an eternity!"  
"Well, we have to be quick. And now don't waste time and come!"  
He ran off and she followed him.  
They ran over the uneven terrain of the Outlands for a long time, had to climb up big rocks sometimes, and soon they were out of breath, but that didn't matter. They could not stop. When they reached the top of a hill, Susan and Zuse took heart at the sight of the ISO Towers.  
"Look! We almost made it!"  
There something caught Susan's eye. Around the huge gleaming Towers there were orange lights everywhere.  
Susan's heart dropped. "CLU..."  
Suddenly hundreds of airships shot at the Towers and they were slowly losing their hold. It didn't take long and the ISO Towers collapsed with a loud crash.  
"No...", Susan breathed.  
Over the crash of the collapsing Towers they could hear thousands of ISOs screech.  
Susan began to cry and desperately buried her hands in her hair. Panicking, she looked at Zuse, seeking for help, but he was just thunderstruck staring straightforward, where CLU's army kept firing at full blast.  
She looked forward again and screamed. She screamed all her frustration from her soul, while she could only watch how more and more ISOs were being murdured.  
Her cheeks were soaking wet from all those tears that ran over her face. Still crying, she felt how all strength escaped her body. Her legs gave way to her body's weight. Kneeling she kept whining and stretched her arms out to the ISOs.  
They were dead. All of them were dead. The miracle. There was none left.  
Above her she could hear the rumbling of thunder, and the first raindrops fell down as if the Grid's sky was crying with her.


End file.
